http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu Voices from the lab: Multimedia stories about basic research conducted at Vanderbilt University en-US Publisher: Michael J. Schoenfeld, Editor-in-Chief: David F. Salisbury http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/rss/rss_logo.gif http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu Voices from the lab: Multimedia stories about basic research conducted at Vanderbilt University http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1720&story_id=417 Before you push the button to cast your ballot in the voting booth your brain has already carried out an election of its own to make that action possible. New research shows that our brain accumulates evidence when faced with a choice and triggers an action once that evidence reaches a tipping point. 2010-10-11 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1720&story_id=417 Melanie Moran http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1717&story_id=416 Chemists at Vanderbilt University have created a new class of liquid crystals with unique electrical properties that could improve the performance of digital displays used on everything from digital watches to flat panel televisions. 2010-10-05 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1717&story_id=416 David F. Salisbury http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1714&story_id=415 Researchers at Vanderbilt University, working with collaborators at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh, have discovered a fundamentally new way that DNA-repair enzymes detect and fix damage to the chemical bases that form the letters in the genetic code. 2010-10-04 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1714&story_id=415 David F. Salisbury http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1711&story_id=414 It now appears that the malaria mosquito needs more than one family of odor sensors to sniff out its human prey. That is the implication of new research into the mosquito's sense of smell published in the Aug. 31 issue of the online, open-access journal Public Library of Science Biology. 2010-08-31 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1711&story_id=414 David F. Salisbury http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1696&story_id=411 Joey Barnett's research has been focused on pediatric cardiovascular abnormalities, such as heart defects and murmurs. His ultimate goal is to engineer a living heart valve made of organic tissue that will live and grow with the patient. 2010-07-15 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1696&story_id=411 Joan Brasher http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1708&story_id=413 Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have shown that ordinary water — without any additives — does more than just quench thirst. It has some other unexpected, physiological effects. It increases the activity of the sympathetic — fight or flight — nervous system, which raises alertness, blood pressure and energy expenditure. 2010-07-09 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1708&story_id=413 Leigh MacMillan http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1693&story_id=410 A team of Vanderbilt chemists has developed a novel method for chemically synthesizing peptides that promises to lower the cost and increase the availability of drugs based on natural compounds. 2010-06-24 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1693&story_id=410 David F. Salisbury http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1690&story_id=409 Discovery of a molecular link between impaired insulin signaling in he brain and schizophrenia-like behaviors in mice suggest new strategies for treating psychiatric and cognitive disorders that affect patients with diabetes. 2010-06-15 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1690&story_id=409 Leigh MacMillan http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1678&story_id=407 When loaded with an anticancer drug, a delivery system based on a novel material called nanosponge is three to five times more effective at reducing tumor growth than direct injection. 2010-06-01 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1678&story_id=407 David F. Salisbury http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1662&story_id=406 Unlike the current assumption that cancer cells divide uncontrollably because their circadian clocks are broken, the new study finds that cell division is uncontrolled in an immortal cell line with functioning biological clocks, suggesting that it is the link between the cell's timekeeper and the process of cell division that is disrupted, not the clock mechanism itself. 2010-05-10 http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/text/index.php?action=view_section&id=1662&story_id=406 David F. Salisbury