Arts And Science

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

A complete list of new university faculty for the 2016-17 academic year Blair School of Music Nelson Tyler Nelson, associate professor of voice B.M., University of Utah, 2004 M.M., University of Utah, 2006 D.M., Florida State University, 2009 Nelson is one of America’s most promising young tenors. Read More

Biases that people hold below the surface are influencing how they view this electoral season, as well as major political issues. Efrén Pérez is an expert and wrote a book on the topic. Read More

'The House That Jack Built," a play by Cecilia Tichi, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English, will be produced at the 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, California, Sept. 9-25. 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

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

More ugliness is in the forecast for the presidential campaign, says a Vanderbilt professor. 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

Psychiatrists usually treat marriage troubles by prescribing drugs meant for depression, a new study from Vanderbilt University shows. Read More

Stimulating the brain with a mild electrical current can temporarily sharpen vision without glasses or contacts, Vanderbilt University researchers have found. (But please don't try this at home.) 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

Three sources available from Vanderbilt University for stories about the 2016 Olympics are put forward to journalists 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

There’s a stark and troubling way that incarceration may diminish the ability of a former inmate to empathize with a loved one behind bars, but existing sociological theories fail to capture it. Read More

Ethnocentrism, a term explained in a 2009 book by Vanderbilt's Cindy Kam, is showing up in a major way as a driver in the campaign of Donald Trump. Read More

A new study from Vanderbilt's LAPOP researchers shows that a high percentage of men in the Americas approve of or 'understand' a man striking his wife if she neglects household chores Read More