Science

U.S. Courts have decreed that the federal government must come up with a system for managing nuclear wastes that will ensure the safety of the public and environment for one million years, a period that is 200 times the length of recorded history. Read More

Watch video of the Dec. 5 Thinking Out of the Lunch Box lecture with Assistant Professor of Astronomy Keivan Stassun at the downtown Nashville Public Library. Read More

It‘s a rare case of all light and no heat: A new study reports that a laser can be used to switch a film of vanadium dioxide back and forth between reflective and transparent states without heating or cooling it. Read More

There is a new twist on the question of how biological clocks work. In recent years, scientists have discovered that biological clocks help organize a dizzying array of biochemical processes in the body. Despite a number of hypotheses, exactly how the microscopic pacemakers in every cell in the body exert such a widespread influence has remained a mystery. Read More

Thomas A. Cruse, the H. Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon him by his peers. Read More

Vanderbilt‘s Writing Studio will host a public lecture by Sally Adee, a science writer who lives in Baltimore, Md., and specializes in reporting on geology, solid-state physics, nuclear energy and defense technology. Read More

Two Vanderbilt faculty members ñ Peter T. Cummings and Ellen H. Fanning ñ have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon them by their peers. Read More

Lasers are at the cutting edge of surgery. From cosmetic to brain surgery, intense beams of coherent light are gradually replacing the steel scalpel for many procedures. Read More

Dyer Observatory is offering two opportunities for the public astronomers and aspiring young scientists to pay tribute to the 150th birthday of Nashville's own Edward Emerson Barnard, one of the leading astronomers of the 19th century. Read More

There are two aspects to creating an effective drug: finding a chemical compound that has the desired biological effect and minimal side-effects and then delivering it to the right place in the body for it to do its job. Read More

Peter Cummings, John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt, will receive the 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AlChE) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Award at the institute's annual meeting in November. Read More

Dramatic daily variations in the cockroach's learning ability were discovered by a new study performed by Vanderbilt University biologists and published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More

Michael Bess, the first Chancellor's Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, will deliver his inaugural lecture Oct. 4 on the impact of rapid advances in science, medicine and technology on human identity. Read More

When biological molecules kiss, a new kind of biosensor can tell. A new and deceptively simple technique has been developed by chemists at Vanderbilt University that can measure the interactions between free-floating, unlabeled biological molecules including proteins, sugars, antibodies, DNA and RNA. Read More

Vanderbilt has received a $40 million Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) - its largest ever government research grant - to expedite the translation of laboratory discoveries to patients in the community. Read More

For several months last spring, the Vanderbilt greenhouse held more members of a rare species of native sunflower than are known to exist in the wild. Read More

Vanderbilt University maintained its rank of 23rd in the nation in the total value of federal science and engineering research grants awarded to campus researchers, according to an annual report compiled by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Read More

By mapping a specialized sensory organ that the malaria mosquito uses to zero in on its human prey, an international team of researchers has taken an important step toward developing new and improved repellants and attractants that can be used to reduce the threat of malaria, generally considered the most prevalent life-threatening disease in the world. Read More

Combine a mechanical arm with a miniature rocket motor: The result is a prosthetic device that is the closest thing yet to a bionic arm. Read More

When in doubt about what we see, our brains fill in the gaps for us by first drawing the borders and then 'coloring' in the surface area, new research has found. The research is the first to pinpoint the areas in the brain, and the timing of their activity, responsible for how we see borders and surfaces. Read More