Life, Earth And Space

New fossil evidence strengthens the proposition that the world’s first mass extinction was caused by ‘ecosystem engineers’ – newly evolved organisms that radically altered the environment. Read More

A microscopic analysis of quartz crystals from an ancient California super-eruption indicates that the process of decompression preceding the eruption took place less than a year before. Read More

Fecal transplants are increasingly being used to treat certain human illnesses and more scientists have begun to research the transplants' effects in animals. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt scientists have identified some of the methods that mutant mitochondrial DNA use to circumvent the molecular mechanisms that cells use to regulate mitochondrial activity. Read More

The first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of birds has found that they have significantly more neurons packed into their small brains than are stuffed into mammalian and even primate brains of the same mass. Read More

Vanderbilt biologist Kenneth Catania has accidentally discovered that electric eels can make leaping attacks that dramatically increase the strength of the electric shocks they deliver. In doing so, Catania has confirmed a 200-year-old observation by famous 19th-century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Read More

The results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby’s star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere, a theory that went viral over the past year. Read More

A team of neuroscientists at Vanderbilt University has taken an important step toward uncovering the mystery behind the California sea lion's prodigious intelligence by conducting the first comprehensive study of their central nervous systems. Read More

Astronomers have discovered an unnamed pair of stars that sets a new record for both the longest duration stellar eclipse (3.5 years) and longest period between eclipses (69 years) in a binary system. Read More

The first study that directly compares Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of a significant population of adults of European ancestry with their clinical records confirms that this archaic genetic legacy has a subtle but significant impact on modern human biology. Read More

Application of new micro-analytical techniques have transformed rocks and gravel buried in a special type of soil into a rich source of data about past climates that can help scientists understand how the climate will change in the future. Read More

A new generation of gamma-ray spectrometer being developed by researchers and students in the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge program is perfectly suited for detecting valuable minerals hidden within the asteroids, comets, moons and minor planets in the solar system. Read More

An interdisciplinary team of biologists and medical researchers have created a new platform, which they call GEneSTATION specifically designed to leverage the growing knowledge of human genomics and evolution to advance scientific understanding of human pregnancy and translate it into new treatments for the problems that occur when this complex process goes awry. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist helps craft call for major new research initiative to increase our understanding of the invisible world of microbes that surround us. Read More

A new class of DNA repair enzyme has been discovered which demonstrates that a much broader range of damage can be removed from the double helix in ways that biologists did not think were possible. Read More

Recent research by Vanderbilt University biologist Ken Catania of the electric eel has revealed that it is not primitive creature that it has been portrayed as. Instead, it has a sophisticated control of the electrical fields it generates that makes it one of the most remarkable predators in the animal kingdom. Read More

A new "geospeedometer" that can measure the amount of time between the formation of an explosive magma melt and an eruption confirms that the process took less than 500 years in several ancient super-eruptions. Read More

Recent experiments at the world's largest atom smashers are producing liquid drops so small that they raise the question of how small a droplet can be and still remain a liquid. Read More

Jessica Oster is a member of a small group of earth scientists pioneering the use of mineral cave deposits in stalagmites, collectively known as speleothems, as proxies for the prehistoric climate. Read More

The Earth's first mass extinction event 540 million years ago was caused not by a meteorite impact or volcanic super-eruption, but by the rise of early animals that dramatically changed to prehistoric environment. Read More