Science

ENIGMA ñ you may have seen the movie, read the book or downloaded a software simulation of the secret code machine the Germans used in World War II. Now you have an opportunity to hear a firsthand account of the code-breaking effort that made a major contribution to defeating Nazi Germany. Read More

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced today that Vanderbilt University has joined the laboratory's "core universities." ORNL's core universities--which now number sevenóassume a scientific leadership role in working with the laboratory to help shape the research agenda for more than one billion dollars in science and technology programs. Read More

Three junior Vanderbilt faculty members have won highly competitive national grants designed to recognize and promote promising researchers. The grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army and the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Physics will support research ranging from the origin of stars to better equipment for combat personnel and first responders. Read More

Keeping stockholders satisfied while maintaining a commitment to artistry is the knotty problem facing recording industry executives in the current merger-and-acquisitions business climate. Read More

Psychologists often conclude from research subjects' behavior in psychological experiments that humans are irrational. New research indicates that humans are in fact quite rational; they just do not trust what people in lab coats tell them. The research suggests that by taking doubt into account, psychologists have the opportunity to strengthen the predictive power of many commonly used models and potentially better understand human behavior. Read More

The art and science of being an effective preacher will be examined at a community breakfast sponsored by Vanderbilt University Divinity School and featuring new homiletics professor Brad Braxton. Read More

For a Saturday night outing in Nashville, it's hard to do better than a beautiful mountaintop setting, world-class talent and a bargain price for carpoolers. Read More

Presidential elections, modern poetry and health care are among the wide-ranging non-credit classes available to the public during the fall term of Retirement Learning at Vanderbilt. Read More

An increase in funding of nearly 100 percent in four years has put Vanderbilt among the top 25 U.S. universities for the first time in recent history in terms of the amount of federally supported research and development projects that it conducts. Read More

Richard Woodcock, a world-renowned researcher of learning ability assessment, will present a lecture on historical advances in cognitive assessment on Thursday, Sept. 9, at 4 p.m. at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. The lecture will take place in Room 241 of the Kennedy Center/MRL Building and is free and open to the public. Read More

Vanderbilt University professor Robert D. Sherwood is on loan from the university to the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he will play an integral role in the funding of research and education. Read More

Microscopic pacemakers--also known as circadian clocks--are found in everything from pond scum to human beings and appear to help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes. A study performed by researchers at Vanderbilt University and published in the Aug. 24 issue of the journal Current Biology sheds new light on this issue. Read More

A new genetic model for a motor disorder that confines an estimated 10,000 people in the United States to walkers and wheelchairs indicates that instability in the microscopic scaffolding within a key set of nerve cells is the cause of this devastating disability. Read More

A team of biologists has discovered the structure and genetic sequence of the hormone that makes insects develop their hard outer shells and allows them to spread their wings. The findings answer more than 40 years of questions about insect development. Read More

In the last few decades, scientists have discovered that there is a lot more to the universe than meets the eye: The cosmos appears to be filled with not just one, but two invisible constituents-dark matter and dark energy-whose existence has been proposed based solely on their gravitational effects on ordinary matter and energ Read More

Tennessee teachers and students will work with astronauts, astronomers and other leading space explorers at an interactive summer institute hosted by Dyer Observatory the week of June 21. Read More

For nearly two decades, Vanderbilt University archaeologist Arthur Demarest has explored the rainforests of Guatemala for clues to the ancient Mayas. Along the way, he has formed an alliance with the descendants of that once-powerful civilization to not only uncover but also preserve their proud heritage. That partnership paid off earlier this month with the conviction and sentencing of a gang of looters. Read More

Seeing is believing, even when what we see is ambiguous or misleading. New Vanderbilt research has found that the brain continues to accept ambiguous visual information about an object in motion even when it conflicts with more reliable information that we can touch. Read More

Vanderbilt University is seeking participants for the first phase of a study to learn more about brain activity in children with math or reading disabilities. The ultimate goal of the study, "Remediating Students' Mathematics Disabilities," is to overcome math disability and to examine how brain functioning changes with remediation. Read More

In the morning hours of June 8, visitors to Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory will witness an astronomical event that no living person has ever seen. Venus-the Earth's sister planet-will move directly between the Earth and the sun. The public is invited to view this rare event during a live broadcast at the observatory. Read More