Research

  • TIPSHEET: Vanderbilt legal and military expert can talk about military commissions

    TIPSHEET: Vanderbilt legal and military expert can talk about military commissions

    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

    Mar 9, 2010

  • Why taxing marijuana won’t work

    Why taxing marijuana won’t work

    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

    Mar 9, 2010

  • Cross-disciplinary team builds on existing projects to tackle problems of poverty

    Cross-disciplinary team builds on existing projects to tackle problems of poverty

    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

    Mar 3, 2010

  • Watch: Engineering, Innovation, and the Challenges of the 21st Century

    Watch: Engineering, Innovation, and the Challenges of the 21st Century

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

    Feb 24, 2010

  • Vanderbilt physicists play key role in measuring material hotter than the sun

    Vanderbilt physicists play key role in measuring material hotter than the sun

    Three Vanderbilt physicists are members of the scientific team that have reported creating an exotic state of matter with a temperature of four trillion degrees Celsius. It's the hottest temperature ever achieved in a laboratory and 250,000 times hotter than the heart of the sun. Read More

    Feb 19, 2010

  • A new type of genetic variation could strengthen natural selection

    A new type of genetic variation could strengthen natural selection

    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

    Feb 18, 2010

  • Watch: Vanderbilt students launch new apps for iPhone, Android

    Watch: Vanderbilt students launch new apps for iPhone, Android

    Watch video about new applications developed by Vanderbilt engineering students for iPhone and Android mobile devices. Read More

    Feb 17, 2010

  • Vanderbilt students launch new apps for iPhone, Android

    Vanderbilt students launch new apps for iPhone, Android

    Finding out where to eat, what's happening and how to get around are common questions on every college campus. Now at Vanderbilt University, the answers to these questions can be quickly and easily found using new applications developed by Vanderbilt engineering students for iPhone and Android mobile devices. Read More

    Feb 17, 2010

  • Scientists transplant nose of mosquito, advance fight against malaria

    Scientists transplant nose of mosquito, advance fight against malaria

    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

    Feb 16, 2010

  • Vanderbilt partnering with Metro Nashville Public Schools to offer new master’s program for urban teachers

    Vanderbilt partnering with Metro Nashville Public Schools to offer new master’s program for urban teachers

    Those wishing to teach in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools will have the opportunity to earn a Vanderbilt University master's degree designed expressly for them beginning this summer, Vanderbilt and MNPS announced today. Read More

    Feb 8, 2010

  • Panel celebrates Darwin’s 200th birthday

    Panel celebrates Darwin’s 200th birthday

    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

    Feb 4, 2010

  • More nasty ads expected outcome of Supreme Court ruling

    More nasty ads expected outcome of Supreme Court ruling

    Count on more political attack ads in 2010 after a Supreme Court ruling lifting the ban on corporation and labor donations, according to Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer. Read More

    Jan 21, 2010

  • TIPSHEET:  Grading Obama: Vanderbilt presidential experts offer analysis

    TIPSHEET: Grading Obama: Vanderbilt presidential experts offer analysis

    Vanderbilt experts David Lewis, John Geer and Thomas Schwartz are available to discuss the one-year anniversary of the Obama presidency and his Jan. 27 State of the Union address. Read More

    Jan 19, 2010

  • Watch: “Advanced Computing for a Clean Energy Future”

    Watch: “Advanced Computing for a Clean Energy Future”

    Watch video of the School of Engineering's Hall Lecture, given by the Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Thomas Zacharia. Read More

    Jan 15, 2010

  • TIPSHEET: Vanderbilt expert can talk about history of Haiti in light of earthquake

    TIPSHEET: Vanderbilt expert can talk about history of Haiti in light of earthquake

    Haiti expert Colin Dayan is available to discuss the aftermath of the devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti that has killed tens of thousands and affected 3 million Haitians. Dayan, whose mother and other family members are Haitian, spent the first two decades of her career studying Haiti and is the author of Haiti, History, and the Gods. She can speak on most aspects of Haitian history, including the theory brought up by evangelist Pat Robertson that a pact with the devil by Haitian slaves in 1791 is responsible for the disaster. Read More

    Jan 14, 2010

  • Sequencing wasp genome sheds new light on sexual parasite

    Sequencing wasp genome sheds new light on sexual parasite

    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

    Jan 14, 2010

  • Terrorist threats unlikely to boost Obama‘s approval rating, VU professor finds

    Terrorist threats unlikely to boost Obama‘s approval rating, VU professor finds

    President Barack Obama, unlike George W. Bush, is not likely to enjoy a surge in public approval after terrorism threats, according to research by Vanderbilt University political scientist Elizabeth Zechmeister and her colleague. Zechmeister, assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, and Jennifer Merolla, associate professor at Claremont Graduate University, are the co-authors of Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (University of Chicago Press). Read More

    Jan 12, 2010

  • TIPSHEET: The future of Pluto and Ceres

    TIPSHEET: The future of Pluto and Ceres

    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

    Dec 21, 2009

  • Nuclear energy powered by uranium from the sea could promote peace in coming century

    Nuclear energy powered by uranium from the sea could promote peace in coming century

    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

    Dec 18, 2009

  • Hughes to lead pilot program for high school students with autism

    Hughes to lead pilot program for high school students with autism

    Professor of Special Education Carolyn Hughes has won a $30,000 grant from the Organization for Autism Research to fund a pilot project that will help high school students with autism become more included and involved in their schools and with their peers. Read More

    Dec 18, 2009