Research Blog

  Vanderbilt's virtual control room for the CMS detector that allows scientists and students to participate in meetings, monitor the experiment and analyze the data that it produces (John Russell / Vanderbilt University) After the most complete search yet, the world’s largest atom smasher, the… Read More

Arun Majumdar is the first director of the Department of Energy's ARPA-E (Zach Goodyear / Vanderbilt University) “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It’s time to start thinking.” This quote, attributed to the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, summarizes the main point of the presentation that… Read More

By packing many tools into one advanced, minimally invasive platform, the MAC offers new capabilities for medical providers and less discomfort for patients undergoing colonoscopy or endoscopy. The robot is one of the initiatives of the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering. SAN DIEGO, Calif. – A team of Vanderbilt… Read More

While listening to a physics colloquium titled “Science: What the Public is Thinking, What Congress is Doing, How You Can Contribute” delivered by Michael S. Lubell, professor of physics at the City College of New York and director of public affairs for the American Physical Society (APS), I couldn’t… Read More

A new technique for imaging whole cells in liquid – with a nanometer resolution that brings into focus individual proteins and other intracellular structures – could dramatically improve the study of cancer, viral infections and brain function. Read More

An update on federally funded projects at Vanderbilt and their impact on efforts to improve education, protect people from disease and meet our nation’s energy needs. Read More

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction members (C-span) These days the news is full of stories about the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, nicknamed the Super Committee, and whether it can come up with a politically acceptable way to reduce the ballooning federal deficit. This… Read More

First Lady Michelle Obama addresses the National Science Foundation's Career-Life Balance initiative event in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson) On Monday, Sept 26, when First Lady Michelle Obama hosted an event at the White House to announce… Read More

(iSTOCK) Like the Wizard of Oz, computer scientists have largely been happy to perform their magic behind the curtain, out of public view.  However, this reticence has begun causing problems in the digital realm. “Computer scientists face the drawbacks of lacking public awareness,” wrote an international team… Read More

Astronomer Davy Kirkpatrick (Courtesy of Davy Kirkpatrick) If Davy Kirkpatrick’s calculations stand up, then Vanderbilt will have solid connections to two of the Sun’s nearest stellar neighbors. One link is long standing. Barnard’s star, which is six light years away from the Sun and its second-closest… Read More

Thomas Schwartz Thomas Schwartz, professor of history, recently responded to an interview request from a journalist in São Paulo, Brazil, about the lasting political impacts of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Professor Schwartz’s responses provide a concise overview of the lasting impact of a day… Read More

Scanning electron micrograph of a Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus colony by Perrin Ireland. Art and science are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, these two important fields of human endeavor often draw from and inspire each other. Think Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin. A 21st century version of this cross-fertilization currently… Read More

Last week when the Nashville Scene’s annual Innovations Issue hit the newsstands, three of its ten “forward-thinking ideas that are pushing Nashville – and the world – into the future” came from Vanderbilt. The three campus projects that impressed the Scene editors were: Digging for Drugs:… Read More

  It’s easy to make fun of things you don’t understand. That is particularly true of scientific research. In fact, making fun of federally funded science projects has become an unfortunate political tradition. The Association of American Universities has taken up the challenge of defending publicly… Read More

  Every so often a piece of research makes it into the popular culture. That is the case with the discovery of Vanderbilt biologists Antonis Rokas and Jason Slot that entire gene clusters have jumped between unrelated species of mold millions of years… Read More

First appearance from "Uncanny X-Men" #96. Art by Dave Cockrum. Via Wikipedia. Here’s another reason to love the X-Men: real science. Listen carefully to the dialogue between Professor Charles Xavier and CIA agent Dr. Moira MacTaggart in the new movie, “X-Men: First Class,” and you’ll hear a… Read More

Vanderbilt graduate student Cassidy Cobbs has investigated recent news reports linking cell phone emissions with bee mortality and found that there is no scientific basis for the claims. Read More

Photo of a true blue-eyed cicada (Matt Weiss, Cicada Mania) Have you heard the latest buzz going round that scientists at Vanderbilt are paying as much as $3,000 for specimens of the rare blue-eyed cicada? If you have, I hope you haven’t spent a lot of time… Read More

Students at BSC111c poster session discussing project that determined the phylogenetic relationship of a number of common insects (Susan Urmy / Vanderbilt) In an educational environment increasingly characterized by canned and virtual science experiments that always come out right, Vanderbilt’s alternative introductory biology laboratory (BSC 111c) stands… Read More

Karoly Mirnics and Krassimira Garbett, staff scientist in his laboratory (Susan Urmy / Vanderbilt). I arrived in the states 21 years ago as a student, from what was to become the war-torn country of Yugoslavia. Twenty-one years later I am holding a title of James G. Blakemore Chair and vice… Read More