Science

Henry Petroski, the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, will speak on "The Paradox of Design: Success through Failure" on Wednesday, April 12, at Vanderbilt University in the final presentation of the 2005-06 Chancellor's Lecture Series. Read More

Pity the brown dwarf. It's too large to be a planet, but too small to be a star. Although these "failed stars" are neither fish nor fowl, they play an important role in the cosmic scheme of things. Many astronomers think that they may actually be the most common product of the stellar formation process. So information about brown dwarfs can provide valuable new insights into the dynamic processes that produce stars out of collapsing whirlpools of interstellar dust and gas. Read More

Vanderbilt psychologist Jon Kaas has received approval and sponsorship from the National Academy of Sciences to host a special research colloquium Nov. 16-18 at the Beckman Center of the National Academies in Irvine, Calif. Read More

Educators and researchers have reacted with both enthusiasm and skepticism to President Bush's State of the Union call to improve America's competitiveness in math and science. Vanderbilt education and science experts are available to discuss what it will take to stop the United States' slide towards scientific and mathematic irrelevancy on the global stage. Read More

Charles Darwin would undoubtedly be both pleased and chagrined. Read More

The genetics of brain development, and the impact of mutations that can occur during development, will be the topic of a lecture by Christopher Walsh, Bullard Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 4:10 p.m. His lecture is titled "Human Mental Retardation: Genes that Control the Shape and Size of the Human Brain." Read More

In his State of the Union Address, President Bush called for a sharpening of America's competitiveness and highlighted the need to pick up the pace of innovation in order to thrive on the playing field of global commerce. Read More

Peter T. Cummings -- John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University and director of the Nanomaterials Theory Institute of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory — has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society. Read More

Classroom-based interventions for children with emotional and behavioral disorders was the topic of a Jan. 11 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Devleopment lecture. Read More

For the past few months, Bob O'Dell has been mapping the winds blowing in the Orion Nebula, the closest stellar nursery similar to the one in which the sun was born. Read More

Thomas Weisner, an expert on the mental health challenges and needs of teens with disabilities, will deliver the 2006 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Martin Luther King Jr. lecture Monday, Jan. 16, at 4:10 p.m. in Room 241 of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. Read More

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has appointed Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Director Pat Levitt to the National Advisory Mental Health Council. Read More

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Scopes for School workshop, scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 13 at the Vanderbilt University Dyer Observatory, has been postponed. Read More

Imagine digitizing the entire printed contents of the Library of Congress and transmitting it to another part of the globe in 10 minutes flat. Read More

"Cast in concrete" is not all it's cracked up to be. Concrete structures from bridges to condominium complexes are susceptible to cracks, corrosion and other forces of natural and man-made chemical assault and degradation. Aging structures can be repaired, but at significant cost. Read More

Soccer-ball-shaped "buckyballs" are the most famous players on the nanoscale field, presenting tantalizing prospects of revolutionizing medicine and the computer industry. Since their discovery in 1985, engineers and scientists have been exploring the properties of these molecules for a wide range of applications and innovations. Read More

A standing-room only crowd of over 700 heard from top federal officials and national academic leaders in mental health and human development about topics such as the history of mental retardation research and treatment, the social nature of autism, the interplay between nature and nurture and the new "Decade of Discovery" in mental health research at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center's 40th Anniversary Symposium Nov. 30. Read More

Canals discovered in the Peruvian Andes dating back over 5,400 years offer long-sought proof that irrigation was at the heart of the development of one of the earth's first civilizations. Read More

Vanderbilt psychologist Frank Tong has been named a research leader in the 2005 Scientific American 50, the magazine's annual list recognizing outstanding leadership in science and technology from the past year. Tong and his colleague Yukiyasu Kamitani, an investigator at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, shared the honor for their work in neural imaging. Read More

Tens of thousands of people who experience movement disorders associated with Parkinson's and a variety of other neurological conditions stand to benefit from a new guidance system that uses computerized brain-mapping techniques to significantly improve an increasingly popular procedure called deep brain stimulation. Read More