Building a world-class center for evolution in the heart of Tennessee. Wish us luck. Opinions belong to Andy and not VU.
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Loading...
Find the PDF here: www.vanderbilt.edu/evolution/ma... Issue #9
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Check out Megan's talk Friday afternoon at #PEQG26! Navigating Growth-Survival Tradeoffs in Fluctuating Environments
Some tardigrades produce a protein called Dsup that physically shields their DNA from radiation damage by blocking breaks from forming. When expressed in human cells, it cut radiation-induced DNA breaks in half.
#Evolution got there first. 🐻
Two grad students in the Behringer Lab are overturning assumptions.
William McLaughlin is proving mathematical chaos theory using living bacteria.
Owen Hale found that oxygen-free bacteria mutate more than expected b/c pop size matters more than oxygen.
Congratulations to our 2026-2027 CoEvoD Fellows! 🧬
Claire Cheng, bacterial DNA methylation (Behringer). Joshua Eis, how birds evolved long lifespans (Castiglione). Mia Elbon, human aging and life history, (Herculano-Houzel)
Three fellows. Three labs. One mission. #Evolution
Dave McCauley spent 35 years overturning assumptions about how populations evolve.
1st w/ beetles; finding that single females could found entire new populations.
Then w/ plants; discovering that mitochondrial DNA is more dynamic and variable than expected.
In the 1940s, Max Delbruck was at Vandy asking how viruses replicate and pass on genetic information.
His work on bacteriophages laid the foundation for molecular biology. He won the Nobel Prize for his VU work in 1969.
#ThrowbackThursday #Vanderbilt
Yucca moths and yuccas cannot survive without each other.
But Vanderbilt's Olle Pellmyr discovered cheater moths hiding inside that ancient partnership — and the yuccas had already evolved a way to keep them in check. #Coevolution at its most elegant. 🌵
#TBT #Science
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
📖 Our Spring 2026 magazine is out!
This issue has everything: a Nashville ice storm and what it means for climate science, graduate students proving math with bacteria, AI designing antibodies against bird flu, and a Guggenheim Fellowship for one of our own.
🐙 An octopus has 3 hearts and blue blood.
But the wildest part? 2/3 of its neurons are in its arms, not its head. Each arm has its own nerve cluster that can make decisions independently. The central brain does not micromanage. It delegates.
#Evolution
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt
Evolutionary Studies – the Magazine Issue #1 – PDF – 2/8/22 Issue #2 – PDF – 9/30/22 Issue #3 – PDF – 4/7/23 Issue #4 – PDF – 12/4/23 Issue #5 – PDF – 4/26/24 Issue #6 – PDF – 12/12/24 Issue #7 – PDF ...
Two grad students in the Behringer Lab are overturning assumptions.
William McLaughlin is proving mathematical chaos theory using living bacteria.
Owen Hale found that oxygen-free bacteria mutate more than expected b/c pop size matters more than oxygen.
