Life, Earth And Space

A Vanderbilt graduate student has used a focused beam of electrons to create some of the smallest nanowires ever made, which could bring us closer to flexible, paper-thin tablets and television displays. Read More

Cougars may have survived a mass extinction that took place about 12,000 years ago because they were not particular about what they ate. Read More

Vanderbilt physicist John Wikswo reported significant progress toward creating “homo minutus” – a human-on-a-chip that can be used to test drugs and toxins – on Mar. 26 at the Society of Toxicology meeting in Phoenix. Read More

By shifting evolution into reverse to produce an expensive HIV drug out of a simple sugar, Vanderbilt chemist Brian Bachmann has shown that it may be possible to manufacture exotic and expensive synthetic drugs as easily as brewing beer. Read More

Vanderbilt University has been awarded a Cooperative Agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army Research Office that is worth up to $16.5 million over five years. Read More

The mechanical forces generated by the rhythmic expansion and contraction of cardiac muscle cells play an active role in the initial stage of heart valve formation. Read More

Vanderbilt biologists have discovered that mosquito sperm have a “sense of smell” and that some of same chemicals that the mosquito can smell cause the sperm to swim harder. Read More

A study has found that the time it takes neural networks in the brain to make decisions is remarkably stable regardless of size: a finding that could make it easier to achieve the goal of the President's BRAIN Initiative established last spring. Read More

The popular science magazine Science News has chosen a story featuring research by Vanderbilt's Seth Bordenstein and Robert Brucker as its top science story for the year. Read More

Two Vanderbilt astronomers are among an international team that has discovered a surprising new class of “hypervelocity stars” – solitary stars moving fast enough to escape the gravitational grasp of the Milky Way galaxy. Read More

Vanderbilt University researchers say to take down the water temperature a degree or two when washing your hands to help battle global warming. Read More

A NASA astrophysicist and Vanderbilt graduate student Lisa Upton have confirmed the existence of giant convection cells flowing slowly on the sun, lending further insight into the transport of heat from its core and the origin of cycles of sunspot activity that affect essential satellite-based communications such as cell phones and TV broadcasting. Read More

Tricking algae’s biological clock to remain in its daytime setting can dramatically boost the amount of commercially valuable compounds that these simple marine plants can produce when they are grown in constant light. Read More

Science has progressed from wild speculation about Earth’s planetary neighbors—including how they formed and whether they are inhabited—to a better understanding of our celestial neighborhood, David Weintraub, professor of astronomy, writes in "Scientific American." Read More

Neuroscientists have identified the location in the brain's visual cortex responsible for generating a common perceptual illusion: seeing shapes and surfaces that don't really exist when viewing a fragmented background. Read More

D. Borden Lacy, Ph.D., associate professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and Biochemistry, will receive the 2014 Margaret Etter Award from the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) for outstanding achievement and exceptional potential in crystallographic research demonstrated by a scientist at an early stage of their independent career. Read More

Tiffiny Tung, associate professor of anthropology, is on familiar terms with the dead. She may not know their names, but she can tell you a surprising amount of information about how they lived—and even, on occasion, how they died. Read More

Astronomers have found a clever new way to slice and dice the flickering light from a distant star in a way that reveals the strength of gravity on its surface. Read More

Scientists at Vanderbilt University and the New York Health Department say colonies of Antarctic brittle stars may be especially vulnerable to the effects of ocean acidification. Read More

Fisk and Vanderbilt's Bridge Program mentors talented minority students pursuing advanced science degrees. Keivan Stassun, professor of astronomy and director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, is quoted. Read More