Life, Earth And Space

DNA related to black widow spider toxin been discovered in a phage that infects the bacterial parasite Wolbachia. It is the first time animal-like DNA has been found in a bacterial virus. Read More

Vanderbilt astrophysicist Jedidah Isler has joined Beyoncé, LeBron James and Serena Williams as a member of The Root’s 100 List of Black Influencers. Read More

Paleoclimatic cave study in California is designed to identify the factors that made megadroughts commonplace in the western U.S. from 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. Read More

U.S. Representative Jim Cooper honored nuclear physicists Joe Hamilton and A.V. Ramayya Aug. 12 for their role in the discovery of the new superheavy element 117 that has been provisionally named Tennessine. Read More

Research by Associate Professor of Psychology Suzana Herculano-Houzel finds that human intelligence comes from the number of neurons in our brains—and it was the invention of cooking that made neuron development possible. Read More

There is new evidence that the "mother’s curse" – the possibility that moms may transmit genes to their children that harm their sons but not their daughters – holds true in animals. Read More

New fossil evidence strengthens the proposition that the world’s first mass extinction was caused by ‘ecosystem engineers’ – newly evolved organisms that radically altered the environment. Read More

A microscopic analysis of quartz crystals from an ancient California super-eruption indicates that the process of decompression preceding the eruption took place less than a year before. Read More

Fecal transplants are increasingly being used to treat certain human illnesses and more scientists have begun to research the transplants' effects in animals. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt scientists have identified some of the methods that mutant mitochondrial DNA use to circumvent the molecular mechanisms that cells use to regulate mitochondrial activity. Read More

Sidney Fleischer, a renowned molecular biologist famous internationally for his work on calcium and the discovery of the ryanodine receptor, was remembered as a “true giant” in his field who worked along with his wife to advance the field of cell signaling. He died May 27 at the age of 86. Read More

Vanderbilt Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Kelly Holley-Bockelmann explains the meaning of the first discovery of gravitational waves at TEDx Nashville. Read More

The first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of birds has found that they have significantly more neurons packed into their small brains than are stuffed into mammalian and even primate brains of the same mass. Read More

The Pew Charitable Trusts has named Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Biochemistry Lauren Parker Jackson as a member of its 2016 class of Pew biomedical scholars. Read More

The provisional name for the newly discovered superheavy element 117 is "tennessine." The name was proposed by Vanderbilt nuclear physicist Joseph Hamilton to honor the state where three members of the international collaboration that made the discovery -- Vanderbilt University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee at Knoxville -- are located. Read More

Vanderbilt biologist Kenneth Catania has accidentally discovered that electric eels can make leaping attacks that dramatically increase the strength of the electric shocks they deliver. In doing so, Catania has confirmed a 200-year-old observation by famous 19th-century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Read More

High school students performing advanced research at Vanderbilt have the opportunity to share their findings with the scientific community through a journal of their own. Read More

Thirteen interdisciplinary projects, ranging from cellular processes and smart cities to global health care issues, have been selected as the 2016 awardees of the Trans-Institutional Program (TIPs) initiative. Read More

The Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, which supports minority STEM graduate students, is the subject of a feature story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Read More

Observational astrophysicist Jedidah Isler, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt, has been selected as a member of the National Geographic Society's inaugural class of Emerging Explorers. Read More