Science

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

The monuments, sculptures, jades, and other treasures recovered by the Vanderbilt University and National Geographic Cancuen Archaeological Project are now on exhibit in a museum tour in Europe. Read More

Thirty-one assassinated and dismembered Maya nobles have been found by a team of Guatemalan and American archaeologists in a sacred cistern at the entrance to the sprawling royal palace in the ruins of the ancient city of CancuÈn, capital of one of the richest kingdoms of the Classic Maya civilization (circa A.D. 300-900), located in the PetÈn rain forest of Guatemala. The National Geographic Society, Vanderbilt University and the Ministry of Culture of Guatemala announced the gruesome discovery, which is believed to record a critical moment at the beginning of the mysterious collapse of this great ancient civilization. Read More

Vanderbilt anthropologist Tom Dillehay has spent the past 30 years uncovering the ancient history of Chile and other South American countries, in the process changing our understanding of how and when humans first came to the Americas. His contributions to Chilean culture were recognized this fall by Chile's President Ricardo Lagos with an announcement that his work will be used to symbolize Chile's Sello Bicentenario, or bicentennial, which the nation will celebrate in 2010. Read More

The stars are now much closer for Vanderbilt and Tennessee State University studentsóso close, in fact, that they don't even have to leave their dorm rooms to study them. A new robotic telescope, made possible with funds from NASA and a partnership between TSU and Vanderbilt's Dyer Observatory, will celebrate its "first light" at its Dyer Observatory home at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 7. Read More

The Dan Marino Foundation has pledged $1.2 million over three years to establish the Marino Autism Research Institute at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center's Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders and the University of Miami Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. Read More

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center is recruiting families of children with and without autism to participate in a study of the relationship between sleep patterns and behavior in children with autism. Read More

Take an LED that produces intense, blue light. Coat it with a thin layer of special microscopic beads called quantum dots. And you have what could become the successor to the venerable light bulb. Read More

Thomas R. Harris, Vanderbilt chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department and Orrin H. Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering, has received a distinguished service award from the major scientific and professional society in the field of biomedical engineering. Read More

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development has won a $2.5 million, five-year grant and designation as a University Center for Excellence on Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service from the federal Administration on Developmental Disabilities. The center will use the funds to expand training and outreach and to improve disability services to poor and underserved populations across Tennessee. Read More

Vanderbilt University ranks 24th in the value of federal research grants awarded to faculty members, according to the National Science Foundation. Read More

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Larry R. Churchill, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, will examine the factors that must be addressed as America confronts the Medicare crisis in the 21st century during a lecture Sept. 13 at Flynn Auditorium in the Vanderbilt Law School. Read More