Featured Research

New and proposed federal energy-efficient standards for automobiles, clothes dryers, air conditioners and light bulbs make unfair assumptions about the rationality of consumers, said researchers from Vanderbilt University and the Brookings Institution. Read More

The latest observations of a newly born star have found that it has a pair of spots on its surface that are heated to more than one million degrees. The presence of these spots confirms a theory for how stellar infants grow advanced by Professor of Astronomy David Weintraub and a colleague. Read More

The Systems Biology and Bioengineering Undergraduate Research Experience Searle Undergraduate Research Initiative is one of only a handful of multiyear, year-round undergraduate research programs in the nation. Read More

Groundbreaking new research in the field of “evolutionary analysis in law” not only provides additional evidence that chimpanzees share the controversial human psychological trait known as the endowment effect – which in humans has implications for law – but also shows the effect can be turned on or off for single objects, depending on their immediate situational usefulness. Read More

Jamey Young, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, likes to build bridges. But rather than physical structures, Young focuses on spanning the divide between biology and engineering, diabetes and cancer, and plants and animals. Read More

An interdisciplinary team of scientists have successfully tagged a protein that regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin with tiny fluorescent beads, allowing them to track the movements of individual molecules for the first time. This capability makes it possible to study the manner in which serotonin regulates mood, appetite and sleep at a new level of detail. Read More

The flag of the Dominican Republic (Paul Stein) One of the most important factors influencing citizens to participate actively in political campaigns in the Americas is education, according to a survey conducted by Vanderbilt University. “Working for a political party or campaign is uncommon,” the researchers wrote in a… Read More

Study finds no evidence of increased mitochondrial mutations in the children of women treated with radiation for cancer. Read More

If municipalities want to combat workplace discrimination because of obesity, they should look to Madison, Wis., and Urbana, Ill., for good models. Read More

The Health Care Innovation Award from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is one of the largest federal research grants awarded to VUMC investigators. The funding will support the implementation and evaluation of MyHealthTeam, a model of team-based care that couples collaborative health care teams with health information technology in order to improve control of chronic conditions. Read More

Nonsupportive family members contribute to poor adherence to medication regimens and lower glycemic control in adults with diabetes. Read More

A small telescope with a lens no more powerful than a high-end digital camera has discovered the existence of two very unusual exoplanets. Read More

Heart disease is still the leading cause of death for men in Tennessee and cancer deaths continue to move further away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy People 2020 goal, according to the 2012 Tennessee Men’s Health Report Card. Read More

A new statistical tool developed by Vanderbilt biostatisticians will help medical researchers make sense of a commonly encountered – but hard-to-analyze – type of data. Read More

A study led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators has identified a gene expression pattern that may explain why chemotherapy prior to surgery isn’t effective against some tumors and suggests new therapy options for patients with specific subtypes of breast cancer. Read More

Vanderbilt is on track this year to become the number one producer of minority Ph.D. recipients in physics, astronomy and materials science, an area where minorities are grossly underrepresented. Watch the emotional journey of the latest doctoral graduates from the Fisk-Vanderbilt-Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program. [vucastblurb]… Read More

A Vanderbilt expert on health policy and economics says that many people who get subsidized private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act in 2014 could face confusing changes in eligibility and cost sharing, and some will be required to pay the government back after the first year of participation. Read More

Chetan Patil, research assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to test the ability of an adapted mobile phone to diagnose jaundice in newborns in developing countries. Read More

Super-eruptions are potentially civilization-ending events and new research suggests that they may have surprisingly short fuses. Read More

Paul Newhouse, Jim Turner Professor of Cognitive Disorders, is interviewed about his research showing that nicotine can help boost memory in people with mild cognitive impairment. Read More