Research

Paying teachers based on their performance in the classroom is a trend gaining momentum across the United States. But does it work? The complex issues surrounding that question will be the topic of a national conference, "Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education," hosted by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University Feb. 28-29. Read More

When you check into a hospital, the odds are one in ten that you will become infected with a strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria as a result of your stay. That is because the problem of drug-resistance has become endemic in today\'s hospitals despite the best efforts of the medical profession. In the United States alone this currently causes about 100,000 deaths per year. Read More

Shrews are tiny mammals that have been widely characterized as simple and primitive. This traditional view is challenged by a new study of the hunting methods of an aquatic member of the species, the water shrew. Read More

Motivating and challenging gifted students in the classroom will be the focus of a free public lecture Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the downtown Nashville Public Library, located at 615 Church St. Free parking is available at the library. Read More

Kids may roll their eyes when their mother asks them about their school day, but answering her may actually help them learn. New research from Vanderbilt University reveals that children learn the solution to a problem best when they explain it to their mom. Read More

Handwriting might be a lost art to many, but it plays a critical role in how we learn and express ourselves, Vanderbilt handwriting expert Steve Graham says. Jan. 23 is National Handwriting Day. Read More

If the latest simulation of what happens when black holes merge is correct, there could be hundreds of rogue black holes, each weighing several thousand times the mass of the sun, roaming around the Milky Way galaxy. Read More

A series of musical performances, panel discussions, the release of a double CD of religious music and a conference to sum it all up will mark a semester-long investigation of "God in Music City" at Vanderbilt University. Read More

A new book co-authored by Vanderbilt University education faculty seeks to reverse the downward trend in the quality of student writing. Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students presents a detailed program that teachers can use to help students master writing and improve their self-confidence. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt researchers has demonstrated for the first time that a new type of gene therapy, called RNA interference, can heal a genetic disorder in a live animal. Read More

U.S. Courts have decreed that the federal government must come up with a system for managing nuclear wastes that will ensure the safety of the public and environment for one million years, a period that is 200 times the length of recorded history. Read More

It‘s a rare case of all light and no heat: A new study reports that a laser can be used to switch a film of vanadium dioxide back and forth between reflective and transparent states without heating or cooling it. Read More

Property rights play a pivotal role in fashioning American constitutional order. New research by renowned legal historian and Vanderbilt professor of law and history James W. Ely Jr. traces the historical relationship between private property ownership and political liberty. Read More

The Vanderbilt School of Engineering will soon have a new state-of-the-art biodiesel testing facility, thanks to a $100,000 gift from the DENSO North America Foundation. Read More

An animated computer program created by a Vanderbilt University professor of computer science and computer engineering is being used in Nashville public school classrooms to teach science to middle school students. But the teachable agent called Betty‘s Brain does much more; it also teaches students how to learn. Read More

Subjects like physics, calculus and biology are challenging for most students, but imagine tackling these topics without being able to see the graphs and figures used to teach them. A new smartpen and paper technology that works with touch and records classroom audio aims to bring these subjects to life for blind students. Read More

With the holiday shopping season here, marketing experts from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management are available to discuss a range of retail business and consumer issues. Read More

How much does a pack of cigarettes really cost a smoker? While past studies have focused on the cost of cigarette smoking to society, a new report by two Vanderbilt University professors looks at the cost of smoking per pack in terms of the value of the risks to the smoker‘s life. Read More

There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work. In recent years, scientists have discovered that biological clocks help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes in the body. Despite a number of hypotheses, exactly how the microscopic pacemakers in every cell in the body exert such a widespread influence has remained a mystery. Read More

The Nasdaq Stock Market Educational Foundation Inc. has awarded the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management a $45,000 grant to support Owen‘s Financial Markets Research Center (FMRC). Read More