Life, Earth And Space

Recent microbiological research has shown that plants and animals, including humans, are not autonomous individuals but are holobionts: biomolecular networks that consist of visible hosts plus millions of invisible microbes. Read More

A Vanderbilt team of scientists have developed a new formulation for cosmic viscosity which strongly favors the "Big Rip" end of the universe. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have made the world’s smallest spirals and found they have unique optical properties that are nearly impossible to counterfeit. Read More

Jessica Oster and her colleagues have shown that the analysis of a stalagmite from a cave in north east India can detect the link between El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian monsoon. Read More

Vanderbilt biologists have localized the seasonal light cycle effects that drive seasonal affective disorder to a small region of the brain called the dorsal raphe nucleus. Read More

Explainer: the mysterious dark energy that speeds the universe’s rate of expansion Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have identified the role that a key protein associated with autism and the co-occurrence of alcohol dependency and depression plays in forming the spines that create new connections in the brain. Read More

Bob O'Dell reflects on the challenges of building the Hubble Space Telescope, launched 25 years ago. Read More

The evolutionary history of whales, sea turtles and other land animals that have returned to the sea details the radical changes to their life style, body shape, physiology that they made to survive in an aquatic environment. Read More

EPA is establishing a new center at Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh to develop an alternative approach for toxicity testing to help evaluate the safety of the 80,000-plus chemicals in general commerce. Read More

Vanderbilt biologists have found a direct link between the biological clock and Angelman syndrome, a neurogenetic disorder that occurs in more than one in every 15,000 live births. The link may provide a valuable way to judge the effectiveness of the first experimental drugs under development for treating the syndrome. Read More

Dennis Hall writes that while 'The Imitation Game' film dramatizes technological discoveries that shortened World War II, there is a lesser known story about radar advances that brought us the microwave. Read More

Vanderbilt mathematician Glenn Webb and NYU microbiologist Martin Blaser propose that the microbes which live on our bodies may have influenced the age structure of human populations in prehistoric times. Read More

A family of single-celled organisms that thrive in environments too extreme for most other species to survive may be an untapped source of new antibacterial drugs. Read More

Scientists at Vanderbilt and ORNL have discovered a new form of crystalline order that could make better thermoelectric devices. Read More

Last month volcano expert Calvin Miller had the good fortune to witness the major volcanic eruption taking place in Iceland. Read More

Conditions on Earth in its first 500 million years may have been cool enough to form oceans of water instead of being hellishly hot. Read More

Mosquito researcher Jason Pitts collects interesting facts and stories about his research subjects, nature’s ultimate bioterrorists. Read More

Seth Bordenstein, associate professor of biological sciences, and graduate student Robert Brucker, discovered that the survival of a new hybrid of wasp depended not on their genes but on the microbes that naturally lived on and inside the insects. Read More

Vanderbilt astronomers have developed a model that predicts the effect that ingesting earth-like planets has on the chemical composition of stars like the Sun -- a capability that can aid in efforts to find Earth-like exoplanets. Read More