Life, Earth And Space

The Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies Initiative is hosting a free presentation by prominent paleoconservationist Michael Archer, who will discuss how understanding ancient life can help conservationists save endangered species today. The virtual event will be Wednesday, March 24, at 3:10 p.m. CT. Read More

Billy Teets, director and resident astronomer for Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, will lead a discussion of the history of the Voyager spacecraft—including their engineering, major discoveries and what they are up to today. The virtual event will be at 7 p.m. CT on Thursday, March 25. Read More

Vanderbilt astronomers have painted their best picture yet of an RV Tauri variable—a rare type of stellar binary—by mining a 130-year-old dataset that spans the widest range of light yet collected for one of these systems, from radio waves to X-rays. Read More

Seth Bordenstein, Centennial Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Vanderbilt Microbiome Initiative, has been elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. Read More

Vanderbilt paleoclimatologists deploy first calcium isotope analysis of North American stalagmite to show how past weather extremes may predict events in California. Read More

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History senior scientist Kay Behrensmeyer will discuss fossilization and its relevance to our understanding of ancient life on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 3:10 p.m. CT. Read More

Sean B. Carroll, a world-renowned evolutionary biologist whose discoveries have shed light on the evolution of animal diversity, will deliver the 2021 Darwin Day Lecture on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 3:10 p.m. CT. Read More

Thanks to her passion for astronomy, as well as mentoring from faculty, undergraduate Samantha Bianco is both a named co-author on a graduate-level scientific research paper and the first Vanderbilt student officially to have completed an Immersion Vanderbilt project. Read More

The discovery of a cosmic signal common across many stars could be the first sign of gravitational waves. Read More

Advances in big data technology and digital analytics are transforming the field of archaeology. One such study led by Vanderbilt anthropology professor Steven Wernke has brought a fresh perspective to the forced resettlement of more than a million Indigenous Andeans by Spanish colonizers in the 1570s. Read More

Through a partnership with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Vanderbilt astronomers use big data to see the cosmos as a stop-motion movie instead of a snapshot. Read More

A new study shows that insect immune and circulatory systems cooperate to fight infection, similar to those in mammals. Read More

Isotope analysis of ancient Peruvian teeth gives anthropologists a clearer image of how cooperating societies function. Read More

Learn how federal policy shapes space exploration, observe a once-in-a-lifetime planetary conjunction and more this month with Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. Read More

Interdisciplinary Earth scientists explore how little-understood underwater volcanoes affect the atmosphere. Read More

Take a guided tour of the autumn skies during a star party led by Billy Teets, acting director and outreach astronomer for Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory. Stargaze on Saturday, Nov. 14, and learn how to buy a home telescope from a Vanderbilt astronomer on Thursday, Nov. 19. Read More

Vanderbilt research shows the unintended consequence of pesticides is the death of a bee’s circadian rhythm, not the bee herself. Read More

Studying “cheater” and “cooperative” mitochondria under environmental pressure delivers solid evolutionary conclusions in a longstanding theoretical field. Read More

During a summer of exoplanet discoveries, astronomer Keivan Stassun helps identify new worlds and expand understanding of our own. Read More

The intermediate-mass black hole first observed in May 2019 presents an entirely new category of black hole. Read More