Arts and Science Research
Unexpected mammal provides insight into the lives of ancient hominins
Jun. 11, 2020—Paleontologist and associate professor of biological sciences Larisa DeSantis finds answers about early hominin diets are with an unrelated group of mammals—tapirs.
Vanderbilt lab develops app for analyzing crowd-sourced songbird recordings
Apr. 20, 2020—With a new app from a team at Vanderbilt, birdsong researchers can better leverage crowdsourced fieldwork and audio recordings from amateur birders and citizen songbird scientists.
Advanced, high-res MRI scans reveal link between cognitive abilities and ‘tree ring’ layers in the brain
Apr. 13, 2020—Object recognition and facial recognition may seem like similar abilities, but new research from Vanderbilt finds that these behaviors are on the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to physical signatures in the brain.
Chemistry department leverages available resources for hand sanitizer production
Apr. 9, 2020—As universities across the country pool resources to tackle pressing challenges brought on by COVID-19, individuals in the Department of Chemistry at Vanderbilt are working to develop one resource in high demand: hand sanitizer.
Biology researchers capture shape-shifting delivery structures in body’s cellular “FedEx system”
Mar. 9, 2020—A new cellular biology study reports the first visualization of a unique shape-shifting structure in the human body which plays an important role in the timely delivery of fats and proteins.
Fasting at night or in the morning? Listen to your biological clock, says new research
Feb. 27, 2020—According to a new study published by biological science researchers at Vanderbilt, the answer to eating (or fasting) windows lies in the circadian rhythms of the body’s biological clock.
Bangladesh collaboration offers lessons for facing rapid environmental changes
Feb. 24, 2020—With a population of roughly 150 million people, the delta country of Bangladesh holds about half the population of the entire United States in an area the size of Louisiana, and exists under a near-constant risk of sea level rise and other dynamic climate changes. Now, as the world faces a future chock-full of increasing...
Where are the quokkas? New study explains what happened to the “happiest animal in the world”
Feb. 21, 2020—The quokka, a small marsupial native to Australia, is an example of a species vulnerable to extinction in the country’s harsh surroundings. In a new study, researchers at Vanderbilt University demonstrate evidence for the dramatic decline of quokkas over the past century.
New thalattosaur species discovered in Southeast Alaska
Feb. 4, 2020—Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Vanderbilt University have identified a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago.
How ants get angry: Precise “lock and key” process regulates aggression, acceptance
Feb. 3, 2020—In a new study, scientists at Vanderbilt report definitive evidence of a mechanism within ants that is responsible for unlocking aggression. The research—the first to pinpoint this mechanism and its precise role in ant biology—reports a social characteristic which could help account for their evolutionary success.
How many stars eventually collide as black holes? The universe has a budget for that.
Jan. 31, 2020—A promising new study developed by one Vanderbilt astrophysicist may give us a method for finding the number of available stars in the history of the universe that collide as binary black holes.
Experiments into amorphous carbon monolayer lend new evidence to physics debate, lay groundwork for future devices
Jan. 8, 2020—A new study into two-dimensional amorphous carbon is providing answers to long-standing questions regarding the atomic makeup of bulk amorphous materials, opening the door to exciting device applications in the future.