Research

Slowly but steadily the U.S. health care community is moving into the digital age: shifting their medical records from paper to electronic information systems. This movement raises serious concerns about security and privacy of patients’ medical information. Read More

Two Vanderbilt undergraduates had the rare opportunity to present their research findings on the influence of patronage on presidential appointments and government performance at the 2010 Midwest Political Science Association Conference. Read More

Two Vanderbilt University undergraduates had the rare opportunity to present their research findings on the influence of patronage on presidential appointments and government performance at the 2010 Midwest Political Science Association Conference. Read More

Immortality and uncontrolled cell division are the fundamental differences between cancer cells and normal cells. Read More

The latest research on the nation’s key K-12 and higher education issues, from No Child Left Behind to charter schools to higher education funding, will be presented by Vanderbilt University Peabody College researchers April 30-May 4 at the American Educational Research Foundation annual conference in Denver, Colo. Read More

Vanderbilt Professor of Physics Paul Sheldon heads a multi-institutional team that has received an Internet2 award for a networking system that they have developed to make it easier to move and store mountains of digital data. Read More

As the Obama administration researches candidates to succeed retiring Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, Vanderbilt experts are ready to weigh in on Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court and the list of potential nominees. Read More

"In the non-legal context, genocide has come to be thought of as the epitome of ’evil,’" writes Vanderbilt philosopher Larry May in his new book, Genocide. "Some authors have argued that we should regard genocide as merely a plain fact that should not be further investigated lest we risk that our explanations and conceptual inquiries will be mistakenly seen as forgiveness for the horror of what genocide is." Read More

Homeowners in community land trusts across the nation continue to have substantially lower delinquency and foreclosure rates than owners of market-rate homes, according to survey results released this month by Vanderbilt University researcher Emily Thaden in partnership with the National Community Land Trust Network. Read More

Although reading and writing have become essential skills for almost every job, the majority of students do not read or write well enough to meet grade-level demands. A new report co-authored by Vanderbilt researchers Steve Graham and Michael Hebert finds that while the two skills are closely connected, writing is an often-overlooked tool for improving reading skills and content learning. Read More

There are two major schools of thought when it comes to educating children and youth with severe learning needs and both are off target, researchers from Vanderbilt and Clemson universities report. The researchers argue a return to the original principles of special education that is informed by modern data and techniques is needed to reform both general and special education. Read More

Vanderbilt physicist Joe Hamilton played a key role in the discovery of element 117, a new super-heavy element that has been created and identified by an international scientific team. Discovery of the new element provides new information about the basic organization of matter and strengthens the likelihood that still more massive elements may form an "island of stability": a cluster of stable super-heavy elements that could form novel materials with exotic and as yet unimagined scientific and practical applications. Read More

On Tuesday, March 30, Vanderbilt's high-energy physicists are opening a virtual control room that will allow them to participate fully in the experiments that will be conducted on the world's largest particle accelerator, the $9 billion Large Hadron Collider located in Switzerland. The LHC is beginning its research program on Tuesday and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the machine, has invited the world's science press to cover the event. Read More

The battle between creationists and Darwinians sometimes appears to be irresolvable. Pick science or religion – you can't have both. Read More

Should states “take back” some of the power to regulate land use from local governments to help facilitate more environmentally sustainable building? That's the question that will be debated during a panel discussion on the role of local and state land use regulation in fostering green building design. Read More

When cells move about in the body, they follow a complex pattern similar to that which amoebae and bacteria use when searching for food, a team of Vanderbilt researchers have found. Read More

President Obama is now debating whether to have the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, prosecuted in a military tribunal, despite Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to try Mohammed in civilian court. Read More

The current financial crisis hitting the United States has made the idea of legalizing and taxing marijuana much more attractive for debt-ridden states. California proponents claim they could generate more than a billion dollars by legalizing and taxing marijuana distribution and save millions more by reducing law enforcement costs on prohibition enforcement. But Vanderbilt University Law School professor Robert Mikos explains in a new paper why the seemingly clear way to make money by legalizing and taxing marijuana distribution has too many legal hurdles to actually work. Read More

Problems of extreme poverty – from affordable housing to health care delivery to nutrition – will be the focus of efforts by a large number of students traveling this spring to Guatemala, where Vanderbilt already leads numerous sustained studies and initiatives. Read More

Watch video beginning of a talk by Charles M. Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering and President Emeritus, MIT. Read More