Life, Earth And Space

A team of Columbia University physicists who participated in the first detection of gravity waves will describe the monumental discovery in a free public lecture on campus Thursday, Feb. 18. Read More

The first study that directly compares Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of a significant population of adults of European ancestry with their clinical records confirms that this archaic genetic legacy has a subtle but significant impact on modern human biology. Read More

Application of new micro-analytical techniques have transformed rocks and gravel buried in a special type of soil into a rich source of data about past climates that can help scientists understand how the climate will change in the future. Read More

Associate Professor of Chemistry Jens Meiler has received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany. Read More

A new generation of gamma-ray spectrometer being developed by researchers and students in the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge program is perfectly suited for detecting valuable minerals hidden within the asteroids, comets, moons and minor planets in the solar system. Read More

An interdisciplinary team of biologists and medical researchers have created a new platform, which they call GEneSTATION specifically designed to leverage the growing knowledge of human genomics and evolution to advance scientific understanding of human pregnancy and translate it into new treatments for the problems that occur when this complex process goes awry. Read More

Vanderbilt chemist helps craft call for major new research initiative to increase our understanding of the invisible world of microbes that surround us. Read More

This December Rick Chappell, research professor of physics and past director of the Office of Science and Research Communications at Vanderbilt, will receive two awards from the American Geophysical Union recognizing his achievements in communicating science to the public and teaching and mentoring students toward careers in geophysics and space physics. Read More

A new class of DNA repair enzyme has been discovered which demonstrates that a much broader range of damage can be removed from the double helix in ways that biologists did not think were possible. Read More

Recent research by Vanderbilt University biologist Ken Catania of the electric eel has revealed that it is not primitive creature that it has been portrayed as. Instead, it has a sophisticated control of the electrical fields it generates that makes it one of the most remarkable predators in the animal kingdom. Read More

The director of forensic investigations for the Italian State Police is giving a free public lecture titled "A physicist at the crime scene" on the Vanderbilt campus on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 29. Read More

A new "geospeedometer" that can measure the amount of time between the formation of an explosive magma melt and an eruption confirms that the process took less than 500 years in several ancient super-eruptions. Read More

James Peebles, the Albert Einstein Professor of Science, Emeritus, at Princeton University, is giving a free public lecture on campus Oct. 22 titled "The Renaissance of General Relativity." Read More

Gregory Benford, a physicist at UC-Irvine and a noted science fiction author, is giving a free public lecture titled "Our Next Century in Space" that will describe steps that could see the opening of the solar system to productive use and colonization. Read More

Recent experiments at the world's largest atom smashers are producing liquid drops so small that they raise the question of how small a droplet can be and still remain a liquid. Read More

Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, associate professor of physics and astronomy, has been named director of the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, College of Arts and Science Dean Lauren Benton announced. Read More

Jessica Oster is a member of a small group of earth scientists pioneering the use of mineral cave deposits in stalagmites, collectively known as speleothems, as proxies for the prehistoric climate. Read More

The Earth's first mass extinction event 540 million years ago was caused not by a meteorite impact or volcanic super-eruption, but by the rise of early animals that dramatically changed to prehistoric environment. Read More

Recent microbiological research has shown that plants and animals, including humans, are not autonomous individuals but are holobionts: biomolecular networks that consist of visible hosts plus millions of invisible microbes. Read More

A new map of the Milky Way has discovered that 30 percent of the galaxy's stars are wanderers, making major shifts in their orbits during their lifetimes. Vanderbilt post-doc Jonathan Bird played a major role in the study. Read More