Life, Earth And Space

The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection – the force that drives evolution – is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought. Read More

Scientists at Vanderbilt and Yale universities have successfully transplanted most of the "nose" of the mosquito that spreads malaria into frog eggs and fruit flies and are employing these surrogates to combat the spread of the deadly and debilitating disease that afflicts 500 million people. Read More

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the Department of Biological Sciences and the Law School at Vanderbilt University are jointly sponsoring a panel discussion about the famous naturalist's life and research. Read More

Seth Bordenstein, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt, is studying the relationship between this parasitic bacteria and Nasonia, a genus of small wasps that prey on various species of flies, including houseflies, blowflies and flesh flies. Read More

Three years ago, when the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to dwarf planet status, the unpopular decision was based on personal opinions and professional politics, not on rigorous scientific criteria that can clearly differentiate planets from lesser bodies, points out Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub. In the next decade, however, the amount of knowledge that we have about Pluto and another dwarf planet, Ceres, will change dramatically and this new information may affect our views of these objects and their status in the solar system as asteroids, dwarf planets or planets. Read More

One of the best things the world can do to promote peace and stability in the coming century is to expand commercial nuclear power based on the extraction of uranium from the ocean. That is the proposition which Frank Parker, an internationally recognized expert in remediation of radioactively contaminated soil and water and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, advanced at an exclusive meeting held at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican last month. Read More

Vanderbilt University Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Kelly Holley-Bockelmann has been awarded the National Science Foundation's largest ever Faculty Early Career Development grant in the field of astronomy. She will use the prestigious award to continue her studies of black holes while supporting the university's innovative program designed to make the university the top producer of underrepresented minorities with Ph.D.s in physics and astronomy. Read More

First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire. Read More

With the support of a $2.7 million Recovery Act grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), an interdisciplinary team headed by Vanderbilt chemist John McLean and physicist John Wikswo will attempt to determine whether an individual's white blood cells retain chemical memories of exposure to drugs like cocaine and alcohol that can be read reliably and unambiguously. Read More

Unnoticed by the nearby residents of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in the area have just provided some of the clearest evidence yet that environmental factors play a major role in the formation of new species. Read More

Antonis Rokas is a member of a small cadre of scientists who are applying the growing power of genomics to untangle and correctly arrange the branches of the tree of life. Read More

"Bad movie physics from the perspective of art and science" is the subject of a free public lecture that is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, in Stevenson Center Room 4327 on the Vanderbilt campus. Read More

A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions. In addition, the study has revealed surprisingly large structural differences between natural prions and the closest synthetic analogs that scientists have created in the lab. Read More

The most ambitious attempt yet to trace the history of the universe has seen "first light." The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), took its first astronomical data on the night of Sept. 14-15 at the Sloan Foundation telescope in New Mexico. Read More

A unique collaboration between Fisk and Vanderbilt universities that is poised to become the nation's top source of Ph.D.s in physics and astronomy awarded to underrepresented minorities has received a major boost from three federal grants totaling $3.7 million. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist David Cliffel has received a grant from the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation to assess the potential of an advanced cell monitoring system for reducing the use of animals in toxicity testing. Read More

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Keivan G. Stassun has been awarded a $50,000 fellowship from the Fletcher Foundation to support his efforts to increase the number of underrepresented minorities pursuing scientific careers. Read More

A Vanderbilt chemist and a biomedical engineer have teamed up to develop a respiratory virus detector that is sensitive enough to detect an infection at an early stage, takes only a few minutes to return a result and is simple enough to be performed in a pediatrician's office. Read More

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. In addition, the fish's reaction is so predictable that the snake actually aims its strike at the position where the fish's head will be instead of tracking its movement. Read More

Watch video of the tentacled snake using a body fake to trick fish into fleeing toward the snake\'s head. Read More