Ideas 2010: National Geo, NY Times

National Geographic offers updates on scientists' thinking on 10 major cosmological ideas... and a recent issue of New York Times Magazine celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the annual December "Year in Ideas" compilation.

VU CERN linkage

Recent Vanderbilt University release describes VU physicists' roles relative to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. VNC's earlier story on related VU CERN data-processing responsibilities is here.

VU scientists earn

Vanderbilt University Physicist Andreas Berlind and geneticist Marylyn Ritchie have each won two-year, $50,000 research fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation that are intended to encourage promising young scholars. Berlind "collects universes," and Ritchie is a researcher in the Vanderbilt Institute for Human Genetics Research, using informatics and computational methods to study ways to fight disease. The VU release is here.

Early-career awards to ORNL PIs

From an ORNL release, Feb. 4: "Four Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are among the 69 scientists that will receive five-year research grants as part of the Department of Energy's new Early Career Research Program. The $85 million program, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by the department's Office of Science, is designed to support exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work. ORNL's grants will be at least $500,000 per year to cover year-round salary plus research expenses." Full release with scientists is here.

VU Scientist

Holley-Bockelmann (left), assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University, has, according to a VU release yesterday, received nearly $1.1 million over five years from the National Science Foundation to use computer simulations to study how “supermassive” black holes grow. VU also said that due to an infusion of ARRA Stimulus funds, the grant is the largest-to-date awarded in the field of astronomy via the NSF Faculty Early Career Development program, which honors extraordinary junior faculty. VU said Holley-Bockelmann has elected to direct a portion of the grant funds toward the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program – an effort to encourage minorities and women to pursue science careers. In the past five years, the Bridge program has attracted 31 underrepresented minority students with a retention rate of 97 percent, and may soon become the nation’s top source of PhD's in physics and astronomy awarded to underrepresented minorities. Last summer, VU announced the Bridge program had in the span of a few months received $3.7 million from several federal programs to support and expand its efforts.

VU scientists see 400 universes

A team of scientists at Vanderbilt University is contributing about 400 views of the Universe to an international project that is mapping the Universe, by measuring the spectra of light from 1.4 million galaxies and 160,000 quasar, work that can trace the evolution of the Universe back 6.5 billion years. VU's release is here.

NSF grant for physics

Academic initiatives to produce more minority Ph.D.'s in physics, astronomy and astrophysics have brought Fisk University and Vanderbilt University grants totaling $3.7MM from the National Science Foundation. Release is here.

VU researcher tells of nanofilms breakthrough

Those nanotechnology films we hear about in conversations about everything from electronics and energy to environmental innovation have been notoriously fragile. Now, Vanderbilt University Asst. Prof. James Dickerson (at left, with student Saad Hasan, photo by Daniel Dubois) reports a breakthrough that could improve computer chips, TV screens and other products and applications. VU's release is here.

Astronomy Day in Nashville

During Tennessee State University's annual research symposium, beginning March 30, Gov. Phil Bredesen has designated March 31 "TSU Astronomy Day," honoring the 10th anniversary of the scientists' work. The event is linked to activities at the Adventure Science Center's Sudekum Planetarium.

VU Dyer Observatory marks Galileo 400th Anniversary

Vanderbilt's Dyer Observatory is participating in the "100 Hours of Astronomy Cornerstone Project," April 4th, in commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of Galileo's introduction of the telescope to astronomy. Dyer details here. Worldwide International Year of Astronomy details, here.

Vanderbilt's new Internet pipe links to 'Big Bang'

The power of global connectivity shows through in our latest story on Vanderbilt University's new 10-gig connection to places like the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Europe (at left), where a number of VU scientists and thousands of colleagues are working to learn more about the origins of matter, the Universe and more.