Life, Earth And Space

Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, assistant professor of astronomy, talks about what sets black holes apart from other objects in the universe and explains how the laws of space, time and gravity bend and even break down to create the most destructive force in the cosmos. 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

The top news stories, Tweets, Facebook posts, photos and videos of the year. 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

Research by Professor of Physics and Astronomy Keivan Stassun and postdoctoral scholar Saurav Dhital has contributed to a new theory about the formation of wide binary star systems. Stassun explores the research in a “News and Views” column in the current issue of Nature. Read More

"Our scientists and engineers are making discoveries today that will lead to unimaginable technological breakthroughs tomorrow in medicine, energy and technology. Without long-term sustained federal investments in science and engineering research, these discoveries simply will not be made," write Chancellor Zeppos and University of Tennessee president Joseph Di Pietro in The Tennessean. 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

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

The most detailed brain mapping study to date has found that the area of the brain that recognizes faces is also used to identify objects of expertise. Read More

This Week on VUCast, Vanderbilt’s online newscast: What these “sensitive” alligators have in common with humans.  Brainy bugs! Why ants are smarter than the average bug.  And a worldwide “girl power” movement comes to Vanderbilt. Read More

Ants have four to five times more odor receptors than most other insects, a team of researchers have discovered. Read More

Stevenson Professor of Chemistry Ned Porter is the recipient of the James Flack Norris Award for Physical Organic Chemistry for 2013, the American Chemical Society has announced. Read More

Biophysicist Erin Rericha spent 12 days in Shanghai this summer demonstrating inexpensive methods for studying cell migration to graduate students and young faculty members from developing countries as part of an annual meeting organized by The Hands-on Research in Complex Systems School. Read More

An electrical engineer who is attempting to make wireless communications more reliable, an astronomer who studies the evolution of the cosmos by creating large numbers of virtual universes and a geologist who is studying the origins of super-eruptions have received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development awards. Read More

Star gazers – both those who have a telescope and those who don’t – should be happy to learn that the largest-ever three-dimensional map of the universe has been released to the public. Read More

Creating a device out of human cells that simulates brain chemistry is the goal of a $6.4 million grant which is part of major new federal initiative to develop a series of “organs on a chip” designed to improve the drug development process. Read More

The amount of damage that radiation causes in electronic materials may be at least 10 times greater than previously thought, say Vanderbilt scientists using a combination of lasers and acoustic waves to pinpoint the size and location of defects buried deep inside. Read More

Study maps the genetic changes involved in the domestication of Aspergillus oryzae, one of the fungi used to make sake, soy sauce and miso. Read More

The latest observations of a newly born star have found that it has a pair of spots on its surface that are heated to more than one million degrees. The presence of these spots confirms a theory for how stellar infants grow advanced by Professor of Astronomy David Weintraub and a colleague. Read More