New Comprehensive Care Center at One Hundred Oaks feels like home to its first patient

Vanderbilt medical researchers, engineers play major role in new national center established to secure the privacy of electronic health information

Slowly but steadily the U.S. health care community is moving into the digital age: shifting their medical records from paper to electronic information systems. This movement raises serious concerns about security and privacy of patients’ medical information.

How cancer cells lose their (circadian) rhythm

Immortality and uncontrolled cell division are the fundamental differences between cancer cells and normal cells.

Human cells exhibit foraging behavior like amoebae and bacteria

When cells move about in the body, they follow a complex pattern similar to that which amoebae and bacteria use when searching for food, a team of Vanderbilt researchers have found.

A new type of genetic variation could strengthen natural selection

The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection – the force that drives evolution – is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought.

TIPSHEET: The future of Pluto and Ceres

Three years ago, when the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to dwarf planet status, the unpopular decision was based on personal opinions and professional politics, not on rigorous scientific criteria that can clearly differentiate planets from lesser bodies, points out Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub. In the next decade, however, the amount of knowledge that we have about Pluto and another dwarf planet, Ceres, will change dramatically and this new information may affect our views of these objects and their status in the solar system as asteroids, dwarf planets or planets.