David Salisbury

Vanderbilt biologist Kenneth Catania has accidentally discovered that electric eels can make leaping attacks that dramatically increase the strength of the electric shocks they deliver. In doing so, Catania has confirmed a 200-year-old observation by famous 19th-century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Read More

The results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby’s star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere, a theory that went viral over the past year. Read More

A team of neuroscientists at Vanderbilt University has taken an important step toward uncovering the mystery behind the California sea lion's prodigious intelligence by conducting the first comprehensive study of their central nervous systems. Read More

A number of exciting projects are among the 74 design projects featured at the School of Engineering’s annual Design Day, including zero-energy home designs and a solar-powered desalination system. Read More

A future generation of atomically thin optoelectronics devices, including transistors, photodetectors and solar cells, is a step closer because of an advance in the art of epitaxy made by scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) with an assist from a pair of Vanderbilt physicists. Read More

A pair of Vanderbilt doctoral students has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of graduate students from around the country to conduct a multi-faceted study of how people are affected by and responding to drought conditions in the United States. Read More

Scientists from Vanderbilt and George Washington universities have worked out a way to make electric vehicles that not only are carbon neutral but carbon negative. Read More

The American Society of Civil Engineers' Music City Bridge Building Competition is being held Saturday, Feb. 27 at Vanderbilt University's Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability. Read More

Astronomers have discovered an unnamed pair of stars that sets a new record for both the longest duration stellar eclipse (3.5 years) and longest period between eclipses (69 years) in a binary system. Read More

The first study that directly compares Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of a significant population of adults of European ancestry with their clinical records confirms that this archaic genetic legacy has a subtle but significant impact on modern human biology. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have modified a cotton candy machine to create complex microfluidic networks that mimic the capillary system in living tissue and have demonstrated that these networks can keep cells alive and functioning in an artificial three-dimensional matrix. Read More

A computer model has been developed that provides new insights into the food-energy-water nexus and can help resource managers around the world do a better job of weighing food and energy tradeoffs when water is scarce. Read More

Application of new micro-analytical techniques have transformed rocks and gravel buried in a special type of soil into a rich source of data about past climates that can help scientists understand how the climate will change in the future. Read More

Harnessing the power of computers to help create an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable future – that is the purpose of a major new grant issued by the National Science Foundation. Read More

A new meta-analysis has found that the beneficial effects of using psychological therapy to treat the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome are not only short term but are also long lasting. Read More

Associate Professor of Chemistry Jens Meiler has received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany. Read More

Biomolecular engineers at Vanderbilt University have obtained the most detailed measurements ever made of the behavior of an individual cellulase enzyme as it decomposes cellulose, the most plentiful polymer on the planet. Improved understanding of how cellulases work could be the key to producing advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline for powering vehicles. Read More

A new generation of gamma-ray spectrometer being developed by researchers and students in the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge program is perfectly suited for detecting valuable minerals hidden within the asteroids, comets, moons and minor planets in the solar system. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have discovered that adding quantum dots made from fool's gold to the electrodes of standard lithium batteries can substantially boost their performance. Read More

An interdisciplinary team of biologists and medical researchers have created a new platform, which they call GEneSTATION specifically designed to leverage the growing knowledge of human genomics and evolution to advance scientific understanding of human pregnancy and translate it into new treatments for the problems that occur when this complex process goes awry. Read More