NSF

Findings will inform educators and school administrators developing curricula for the early years. Read More

A novel drug that targets the protein RSK blocked aggressive breast cancers from metastasizing in an animal model. Read More

A study finds men are better at recognizing Transformer faces while women are better at recognizing Barbie faces, supporting the theory that we're more likely to recognize what we're used to seeing. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have discovered how to make high-performance batteries using scraps of metal from the junkyard and household chemicals. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt scientists have genetically modified luciferase, the enzyme that produces bioluminescence, so that it acts as an optical sensor that records activity in brain cells. Read More

An ambitious postdoctoral training initiative designed to prepare recently graduated doctorates for competitive academic careers will launch later this year, Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos announced Oct. 24. Read More

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 model of honeybee behavior developed by a VU alum, now adapted to control internet server traffic, won an award honoring obscure or odd-seeming research that led to an important advance. 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

Eight entering engineering graduate students have received research fellowships from the National Science Foundation, as did two Vanderbilt engineering undergraduate students who are pursuing their graduate studies elsewhere. 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

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

Five Ph.D. students affiliated with the Department of Anthropology have landed significant grants this year, continuing a long trend of successes for the small department. Read More

A pair of Vanderbilt doctoral students has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of graduate students from around the country to conduct a multi-faceted study of how people are affected by and responding to drought conditions in the United States. Read More

John T. Wilson, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development award. The five-year, $500,000 grant will allow him to develop new synthetic materials for “encoding” immunological messages and tightly regulating their delivery to the organs, cells and pathways of the immune system. Read More

As the result of a joint faculty and staff project, Vanderbilt’s digital pipeline to the outside world will expand tenfold in the next few months, making it much easier for campus researchers to send and receive the increasingly large data files characteristic of cutting-edge scientific and medical research. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have modified a cotton candy machine to create complex microfluidic networks that mimic the capillary system in living tissue and have demonstrated that these networks can keep cells alive and functioning in an artificial three-dimensional matrix. Read More

Harnessing the power of computers to help create an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable future – that is the purpose of a major new grant issued by the National Science Foundation. Read More

A new generation of gamma-ray spectrometer being developed by researchers and students in the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-Ph.D. Bridge program is perfectly suited for detecting valuable minerals hidden within the asteroids, comets, moons and minor planets in the solar system. Read More

Stone tools, cooked animal and plant remains, and fire pits found in Southern Chile provide greater evidence that a nomadic people adapted to a harsh ice-age environment--the first known Americans--reached South America more than 15,000 years ago. Read More