Life, Earth And Space

An interdisciplinary group of scientists has obtained the first detailed information about the structure of the most destructive group of plant viruses known: flexible filamentous viruses. Read More

Scientists have detected previously unnoticed chemical signals that individual cells in the immune system use to communicate with each other over short distances. Read More

"Global Warming – What do we know and what we should do?" is the title of a free public lecture that will be given Thursday afternoon, Sept. 4, on the Vanderbilt University campus. Read More

The analysis of the youngest pair of identical twin stars yet discovered has revealed surprising differences in brightness, surface temperature and possibly even the size of the two. The study, which is published in the June 19 issue of the journal Nature, suggests that one of the stars formed significantly earlier than its twin. Read More

Vanderbilt astronomers have constructed a special-purpose telescope that will allow them to participate in one of the hottest areas in astronomy-- the hunt for earthlike planets circling other stars. Read More

Shape matters, even in hearing. Read More

A new method that uses nanotechnology to rapidly measure minute amounts of insulin is a major step toward developing the ability to assess the health of the body\'s insulin-producing cells in real time. Read More

Nobel laureate George F. Smoot from the University of California, Berkeley will give a free public lecture about what the latest studies of the variations in fossil radiation called the cosmic background radiation (CBR) are revealing about the nature of the embryonic universe shortly after its origin in the Big Bang. Read More

Exploding stars and black holes. Colliding galaxies and dark matter. Dark energy and cosmic inflation. The universe that modern science has revealed is strange and wild and beautiful, but doesn\'t seem particularly hospitable to life or very comprehensible. Read More

Vanderbilt physicist David Ernst played a key role in a new agreement designed to encourage minority students to pursue science careers by giving them easier access to top physics journals. 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

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 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

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

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

Vanderbilt‘s Writing Studio will host a public lecture by Sally Adee, a science writer who lives in Baltimore, Md., and specializes in reporting on geology, solid-state physics, nuclear energy and defense technology. Read More

Two Vanderbilt faculty members ñ Peter T. Cummings and Ellen H. Fanning ñ have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon them by their peers. Read More

Lasers are at the cutting edge of surgery. From cosmetic to brain surgery, intense beams of coherent light are gradually replacing the steel scalpel for many procedures. Read More

There are two aspects to creating an effective drug: finding a chemical compound that has the desired biological effect and minimal side-effects and then delivering it to the right place in the body for it to do its job. Read More