Physics

Astronomers participating in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have announced the results of the first study that shows how the abundance of the "elements of life" varies across the Milky Way galaxy. Read More

Artificial kidneys, gay-straight alliances and junkyard batteries captured readers' attention in 2016. Read More

Expect the unexpected when you walk into Kit Parker’s biophysics lab at Harvard. From cuttlefish skin camouflage to cotton candy machines used for wound dressings, his science is anything but ordinary. In fact, the young scientists inside are just as likely to be playing with crayons to visualize solutions… Read More

In part because much of their work remains classified even after 70 years, the contributions of a group of young Vanderbilt physicists to the Manhattan Project have never received the level of recognition they deserve. Read More

The results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby’s star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere, a theory that went viral over the past year. Read More

For international student Rani Banjarian, differences are what make him feel a part of the university community. 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

Recent experiments at the world's largest atom smashers are producing liquid drops so small that they raise the question of how small a droplet can be and still remain a liquid. Read More

Since launching his blog in April, Professor Robert Scherrer has covered a range of topics, from faster-than-light warp drives and wormholes to the viability of monster ants. Read More

A Vanderbilt team of scientists have developed a new formulation for cosmic viscosity which strongly favors the "Big Rip" end of the universe. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have made the world’s smallest spirals and found they have unique optical properties that are nearly impossible to counterfeit. Read More

Explainer: the mysterious dark energy that speeds the universe’s rate of expansion Read More

The grant program is aimed at aiding individuals who have demonstrated notable potential early in their research career, as well as promoting diversity in the sciences. Read More

EPA is establishing a new center at Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh to develop an alternative approach for toxicity testing to help evaluate the safety of the 80,000-plus chemicals in general commerce. Read More

Dennis Hall writes that while 'The Imitation Game' film dramatizes technological discoveries that shortened World War II, there is a lesser known story about radar advances that brought us the microwave. Read More

A Vanderbilt graduate student has used a focused beam of electrons to create some of the smallest nanowires ever made, which could bring us closer to flexible, paper-thin tablets and television displays. Read More

Vanderbilt physicist John Wikswo reported significant progress toward creating “homo minutus” – a human-on-a-chip that can be used to test drugs and toxins – on Mar. 26 at the Society of Toxicology meeting in Phoenix. Read More

An ultra-fast and ultra-small optical switch has been invented that could advance the day when photons replace electrons in the innards of consumer products ranging from cell phones to automobiles. Read More

The UK audio science fiction magazine Starship Sofa has published a podcast of "Descartes' Stepchildren," a short story by Robert Scherrer, professor and chair of the Vanderbilt's department of physics and astronomy. Read More

Two Vanderbilt astronomers are among an international team that has discovered a surprising new class of “hypervelocity stars” – solitary stars moving fast enough to escape the gravitational grasp of the Milky Way galaxy. Read More