David Salisbury

Disruption in the body’s circadian rhythm can lead not only to obesity, but can also increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease. That is the conclusion of the first study to show definitively that insulin activity is controlled by the body’s circadian biological clock. Read More

(iStock) The circadian clocks that control and influence dozens of basic biological processes have an unexpected “snooze button” that helps cells adapt to changes in their environment. A study by Vanderbilt University researchers published online Feb. 17 by the journal Nature provides compelling new evidence that at least some species… Read More

A new video report of research by Antonis Rokas and John Gibbons describes how humans domesticated microbes like yeast just as we domesticated cats and dogs. Read More

Neuroscientist Kenneth Catania has resolved a long-standing scientific debate by showing that the common mole can smell in stereo. Read More

A team of engineering undergraduates designed and built a one-fifth-scale model of an amphibious vehicle that competed successfully in a national competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency held in mid-January. Read More

This week the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) released a set of engineering software tools designed to revolutionize the process of designing and manufacturing military vehicles. Software engineers at Vanderbilt's Institute for Software Integrated Systems are playing a key role in the effort. Read More

Kenneth Catania, Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University, is one of 18 scientists who have been honored by the National Academy of Sciences for their outstanding scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological and social sciences. Read More

The latest study of the microscopic wear patterns on the teeth of the American lions and saber-toothed cats that roamed North America in the late Pleistocene found that they were living well off the fat of the land in the period just before they went extinct. Read More

Sen. Lamar Alexander (Courtesy of Congress) Imagine a world where American research universities lag behind those in other nations, can no longer be counted upon to make major new scientific discoveries and, as a consequence, money flows to businesses in Bangalore or Beijing that capitalize on their… Read More

Crocodiles and alligators are notorious for their thick skin and well-armored bodies. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that their sense of touch is one of the most acute in the animal kingdom. The crocodilian sense of touch is concentrated in a series of small, pigmented… Read More

In the last five years a grassroots faculty collaboration with the University of Leipzig has flowered, making the historic German university one of Vanderbilt's half dozen strategic international partners. Read More

The Aerospace Club has partnered with Peabody College to produce a five-week program using soda bottle rockets to introduce middle school students to basic engineering principles. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist John McLean served as one of the 14 members of the NRC expert committee that prepared a report in September that recommends the potential of new methods for monitoring the process of destroying the remainder of the nation’s aging stockpile of chemical warfare munitions that could reduce the time and expense involved by almost two thirds. Read More

Vanderbilt biologists have discovered that mosquitoes possess a previously unknown mechanism for destroying pathogens which takes advantage of the peculiarities of the insect’s circulatory system to increase its effectiveness. Read More

Electrical engineering professor Alan Peters has posted the lecture notes to his popular introductory image processing course online. Read More

An amputee using a prosthetic leg designed at Vanderbilt made history by climbing 103 flights of stairs to the top of a Chicago skyscraper. Read More

Researchers have discovered that alligators and crocodiles possess one of the most acute senses of touch in the animal kingdom. Read More

A new study demonstrates how the brain follows Ben Franklin’s famous dictum, “Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.” Read More

If you drop by the American Museum of Natural History the next time you visit New York, there is a good chance that you will see an exhibit highlighting Vanderbilt chemist Brian Bachmann’s "caving for drugs" research. Read More

Women are better than men at recognizing living things and men are better than women at recognizing vehicles: That is the unanticipated result of an analysis of data from a series of visual recognition tasks collected by Vanderbilt psychologists. Read More