Research

A Vanderbilt University political scientist's study of President Obama's appointments during his first six months in office finds some agencies are receiving significantly more qualified presidential appointees than others. Read More

Performance pay programs designed by teachers, for teachers have been found to offer small incentives to a large number of teachers, new research indicates. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist David Cliffel has received a grant from the Alternatives Research & Development Foundation to assess the potential of an advanced cell monitoring system for reducing the use of animals in toxicity testing. Read More

The controversy over President Obama's birth certificate will not go away as long as he refuses to release sealed records, including the original birth certificate, according to Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. Read More

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Keivan G. Stassun has been awarded a $50,000 fellowship from the Fletcher Foundation to support his efforts to increase the number of underrepresented minorities pursuing scientific careers. Read More

Even though it's against federal law to grow, sell or possess marijuana, 13 states have recently legalized medical use of the drug. Now California is contemplating taking the next step – legalizing marijuana outright – in the hope that taxing marijuana sales could help ease the state's latest budget crisis. Vanderbilt University Law School professor Robert Mikos, an expert on federalism issues, examined the conflict between state and federal drug laws in a new paper. Read More

In this tough economy, the allure of buying lottery tickets seems like a pretty enticing way to erase financial problems. But new research from Vanderbilt Law School found that people who won between $50,000 and $150,000 did not solve their debt problems and only postponed bankruptcy. Read More

A Vanderbilt chemist and a biomedical engineer have teamed up to develop a respiratory virus detector that is sensitive enough to detect an infection at an early stage, takes only a few minutes to return a result and is simple enough to be performed in a pediatrician's office. Read More

Will Judge Sonia Sotomayor become the next U.S. Supreme Court justice? Vanderbilt faculty Tracey George, Terry Mahoney and Brian Fitzpatrick provide expert insight and commentary. Read More

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. In addition, the fish's reaction is so predictable that the snake actually aims its strike at the position where the fish's head will be instead of tracking its movement. Read More

Watch video of the tentacled snake using a body fake to trick fish into fleeing toward the snake\'s head. Read More

When a homegrown politician dies suddenly, local companies show the loss of a valuable connection immediately in their share prices, according to research from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. Read More

Jason Martin, a fellow in allergy, pulmonary and critical care medicine, is part of an interdisciplinary team at Vanderbilt University that has come up with a high-tech approach to combat this deadly illness, which is one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States and kills more than half a million people worldwide every year. Read More

Vanderbilt sociologists Jennifer Lena and Richard Peterson analyzed 60 samples of American music and found that each one --over time -- took on forms that were roughly comparable during their developmental sequences. The professors call these four distinct genre types Avant-garde, Scene-based, Industry-based and Traditionalist. "Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories of Music Genres" has been published in the American Sociological Review. Read More

Black Power's complex relationship with liberalism during the civil rights era and the surprising consequences of that interaction are explored in Devin Fergus' book Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980. Read More

Empirical research from Vanderbilt professor of law and political science Tracey George shows how the United States court system, especially the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, could dramatically change under the Obama Administration. Read More

Many schools across the nation struggle in their efforts to deal with challenging behaviors. A new book co-authored by Kathleen Lane, associate professor of special education at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of education and human development, aims to help schools develop a comprehensive strategy to identify and help students with behavior issues before violence erupts. Read More

A new generation of African American theology scholars are striving to define their place at the intersections of religion, social causes and education. Next month, more than 40 of them from across the country will gather at Vanderbilt University to discuss the challenges on this formidable road. Read More

Results from the latest AmericasBarometer Survey showing what the impact of worldwide economic decline might mean for democratic consolidation in Latin America will be presented on May 8 at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C. The presentation by Vanderbilt University political scientists Mitchell Seligson and Elizabeth Zechmeister is titled "Economic Shocks and Democratic Vulnerabilities: Evidence from the AmericasBarometer Survey." Read More

A team of Vanderbilt engineers will play a key role in a new federal effort to significantly improve our understanding of how gases and liquids interact with solid surfaces – basic studies that have potential applications ranging from better batteries to more efficient methods for converting solar and electrical energy into fuel, improved fuel cells and enhancing the corrosion resistance of materials. Read More