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Super-eruptions are potentially civilization-ending events and new research suggests that they may have surprisingly short fuses.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center saw perhaps its busiest weekend ever this Memorial Day holiday, with more than triple the volume of patients treated during a typical weekend.

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Vanderbilt researchers have boosted the efficiency of a novel source of white light called quantum dots more than tenfold, making them of potential interest for commercial applications.

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A new brain imaging study that has found an individual’s willingness to work hard to earn money is strongly influenced by the activity of dopamine in three specific areas of the brain.

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The first study of how mammals in North America adapted to climate change in “deep time” found that families with greater diversity were more stable and maintained larger ranges than less diverse families.

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A pair of neuroscientists from Vanderbilt and Harvard Universities has proposed the first neurobiological model for third-party punishment. It outlines a collection of potential cognitive and brain processes that evolutionary pressures could have re-purposed to make this behavior possible.

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A brain-mapping study has found that people's ability to make decisions in novel situations decreases with age and is associated with a reduction in the integrity of two specific white-matter pathways.

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A new study on novel word learning uncovered clues on reading and plasticity in the brain that could determine interventions for children who struggle with reading.

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Vanderbilt autism experts available for World Autism Day, National Autism Awareness Month

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today that the prevalence of children in the United States with autism has increased. The newly-released statistics suggest one in 88 children have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, up from one in 110 released in 2009. Zachary Warren, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Vanderbilt University, says effective early identification and treatment of autism is a public health emergency.

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As the temperatures rise, traumatic injuries also increase.

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The amount of time spent in bilingual education programs could predict long-term academic success of English Language Learners.

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Shyness may be the result of deficits in two areas of the brain, new research from Vanderbilt University finds.

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Vanderbilt physicists report that they have nailed down the source of the interference inhibiting the rapid flow of electrons through graphene-based devices and found a way to suppress it.

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A method for taking ultrafast ‘sonograms’ of materials undergoing phase transitions sheds new light on the dynamics of this important phenomenon in the world’s fastest phase-change material.

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An app created by a Vanderbilt graduate student converts a tablet into a powerful tool for teaching math to visually impaired students.

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Children’s literature expert discusses enduring value of ‘Dr. Seuss’.

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Vanderbilt research shows a storyline that really makes the viewer pay attention may score the highest. Marketing narratives are more likely to trigger a positive response when following the storyline requires some mental work.

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Benefit of Negative Ads-Religious Bias-Patriotism and the Bible-Latino Vote-Fair Polls--Vanderbilt Experts Available for Hot Button Issues

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New Vanderbilt research shows that though the Republican base is generally biased against Mormonism, Mitt Romney’s religion would not hurt his chances among the GOP faithful as a presidential candidate in the general election.

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The smallest exoplanets yet discovered orbit a dwarf star almost identical to Barnard’s star, one of the Sun’s nearest neighbors. The similarity helped the astronomers calculate the size of the distant planets.

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A Vanderbilt-led workshop for military health care providers could lead to more post-deployment mental health referrals.

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Vanderbilt researchers have received a $1 million Gates Foundation Grand Challenges point-of-care diagnostics grant to develop an easy-to-use, low-cost sample collection and preparation system to allow medical diagnostic testing in the bush.

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Vanderbilt engineers have discovered a surprising new way to increase a material’s thermal conductivity that provides a new tool for managing thermal effects in computers, lasers and a number of other powered devices.

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Why do some great ideas fail and others succeed? The unique innovations pioneered by someone like Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have less to do with “out of the box” creativity than with mastering—and overcoming—a set of fundamental constraints that span everything from technology to society to group dynamics. Management professor David Owens of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management says that business and other leaders need to understand exactly which of the constraints are working against them to help create conditions that foster innovation instead of killing it. After years of academic research, coupled with on-the-job experience at two technology design firms, Owens identifies the six most common hurdles to innovation that companies encounter.

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Children learn more from television when parents interact with them similar to book reading.

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The federal government’s increasing involvement in higher education over the past 100 years has created an intimate relationship that was once virtually nonexistent.

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The 20-minute bloody birth scene in Breaking Dawn – Part One continues a long line of horror films featuring women giving birth to otherworldly creatures, says Kelly Oliver, a philosophy professor who has written a book on images of pregnancy in recent movies and popular culture.

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Students displaced by school closures experience adverse effects both on test scores and attendance—unless they are transferred to substantially higher-performing schools.

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Vanderbilt doctors offer burn safety tips for the holiday season.

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Vanderbilt University economist Joni Hersch has calculated the first measures of sexual harassment risks at work by industry, age group, and sex. Hersch finds that female workers are six times more likely than male workers to experience sexual harassment on the job. In analyzing workers' wages, Hersch finds that firms must pay workers more for exposure to the risk of sexual harassment.

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15 tips for celebrating the holidays sustainably from the Sustainability and Environment Management Office at Vanderbilt University

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A team of Vanderbilt chemists have designed and successfully synthesized the largest artificial protein using a new approach that greatly expands scientists’ ability to create proteins unknown in nature.

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A new study of body ownership using the rubber hand illusion found that people with schizophrenia have a weakened sense of self awareness and produced one of the rare documented cases of a spontaneous out-of-body experience in the laboratory.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement could offer a similar opportunity to left-wing politicians as the Tea Party movement did to the right, says a Vanderbilt University historian.

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A team of scientists has taken a major step toward developing robot biologists. They have shown that their system, the Automated Biology Explorer, can solve a complicated biology problem from scratch.

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The U.S. Supreme Court will make decisions on a number of hotly debated cases this term, and a diverse group of Vanderbilt University experts is available to give their opinions about those cases.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center announces affiliation agreements with regional hospitals.

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Vanderbilt child psychology expert Tedra Walden offers advice to parents on how to discuss 9/11 and other tragic events with their kids.

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How the brain is wired to control impulsive behavior differs significantly from what psychologists have thought, new research finds.

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Education experts from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development are available for back-to-school interviews. Peabody was named the No. 1 graduate school of education in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for the third consecutive year in 2011.

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Vanderbilt researchers have discovered that parathyroid glands have a natural fluorescence that can be used during surgery to identify these tiny organs, which are hard to find with the naked eye.

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A team of Vanderbilt engineers have developed a rapid and low-cost imprinting process that can stamp out a variety of devices that have unique optical, electrical, chemical and mechanical properties.

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Impairments in a brain area involved in perception of social stimuli may be partly responsible for the social difficulties often experienced by those with schizophrenia.

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Discovery of a new class of insect repellant raises the possibility of formulations that are thousands of times more effective than current repellants.

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Vanderbilt University expert suggests how to add some green to your cleaning routine.

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Accepting and understanding natural variability is the key for engineers seeking to make nanoscale devices that are as efficient as living microorganisms.

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As many as 25 percent of hospital nurses go without sleep for at least 24 hours in order to adjust to working on the night shift, which is the least effective strategy for adapting their internal, circadian clocks to a night-time schedule.

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Illegal immigrants find it harder to pay taxes and submit tax returns because of tighter immigration restrictions, according to a study looking at unauthorized Mexican immigrants’ rates of paying Social Security and federal taxes, submitting tax returns and opening bank and credit card accounts.

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Almost all climate scientists agree that actions must be taken to lower carbon emissions, also known as greenhouse gases, to reduce the risk of damage to the environment and ultimately human health. A group of researchers say adding carbon labels to products could help change purchasing behavior and corporate supply chains, ultimately leading to large emissions reductions. They propose a private labeling system to fill the gap until national and international rules are adopted.