Life, Earth And Space

The extinction of one of Australia’s top predators, the marsupial lion, was likely a result of changing weather patterns and loss of habitat rather than human impacts, a study led by Vanderbilt University paleontologist Larisa DeSantis has found. Read More

Prof. Carl Johnson and his team discovered on-and-off interactions between KaiA and KaiC take only seconds but combine to create a 24-hour oscillation of phosphorylation in a test tube. Read More

A prehistoric community in the Mississippi Delta may have abandoned a large ceremonial site after the bayou it sits on began to dry up. Read More

Bordenstein’s team studied Nasonia parasitic wasps, which are about the size of a sesame seed, and they serve as one of the best models to dissect and characterize the evolution of insect genomes. Read More

Vanderbilt scientists have developed a new process that can rapidly and inexpensively identify personalized cancer drugs derived from nature. Read More

How a bacteria hijacked insect fertility remained a mystery for five decades, until Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Seth Bordenstein and his team helped solve it. Read More

Before the Industrial Age, the Mississippi Delta grew at a rate of two to three square miles per year, suggesting that, even with current reclamation efforts, it is unlikely that it will be possible to offset the current rate of loss--15 to 20 square miles per year Read More

Vanderbilt geologist Dan Morgan and undergraduate Andrew Grant took immersion to an extreme, trekking all the way to Antarctica to hunt for the oldest ice ever found. Read More

The newly discovered planets appear to have too much water to sustain life but provide hints at what sorts of planets might do so. Read More

A dozen Vanderbilt students went on a monthlong science adventure of a lifetime, studying super-eruptions, glaciers and earthquakes in New Zealand. Read More

Astronomers have come up with a new and improved method for measuring the masses of millions of solitary stars, especially those with planetary systems. Read More

Filling the universe with knots shortly after it popped into existence 13.8 billion years ago provides a neat explanation for why we inhabit a three-dimensional world. That is the basic idea advanced by an out-of-the-box theory developed by an international team of physicists. Read More

In subatomic collisions, physicists have found the signature of primordial cosmic soup, from which all the stuff in the universe formed, at lower energies and in smaller volume than ever before. Read More

Matthew Feldman, a graduate research assistant in physics and astronomy, is one of only 195 students nationwide who have been awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow Read More

Ken Catania stuck his arm into a tank with an electric eel 10 times -- the only way to get accurate measurements of the circuit created by animal, arm and water. Read More

New insights into the long-lasting effects of Fragile X syndrome on connections in the brain during early development highlight the importance of early detection and treatment. Read More

A new study has found that sugars in mother's' milk do not just provide nutrition for babies but also help protect them from bacterial infections. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers uncover the secret of the remarkable potency of the DNA toxin yatakemycin, which could someday be harnessed to fight cancer. Read More

Scientists have discovered a natural process that makes patterned monolayers suitable for creating a wide variety of novel materials with dual optical, magnetic, catalytic or sensing capabilities. Read More

A team of biologists report a major advance in deciphering the molecular genetics underlying the ant's high-definition sense of smell, an ability that underpins their highly complex society. Read More