climate change
Climate change helped kill off super-sized Ice Age animals in Australia
Jan. 27, 2017—Read the Research News at Vanderbilt story here. During the last Ice Age, Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea formed a single landmass, called Sahul. It was a strange and often hostile place populated by a bizarre cast of giant animals. There were 500-pound kangaroos, marsupial tapirs the size of horses and wombat-like creatures the size...
Mobile Lab Ambassador Application Open
Nov. 29, 2016—Do you enjoy teaching others about sustainability? Are you looking to get some experience in education? Do you want to work with Nashville students in the coolest Mobile Laboratory around? If you answered yes to any of these, we need you! We are looking for two paid VU student ambassadors for the Mobile Lab for...
Cave study designed to solve puzzle of prehistoric megadroughts in the western U.S.
Sep. 2, 2016—Jessica Oster, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University, is using cave deposits to reconstruct past climates. The paleoclimatologist is also setting up an educational program to involve undergraduate, graduate, and high school students in the analysis of samples, design of independent research projects, and managing and manipulating data sets. Read the full...
Eight Vanderbilt researchers named ‘Inspiring Women in STEM’
Aug. 17, 2015—Originally published by MyVU. Eight Vanderbilt professors are recipients of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s 100 Inspiring Women in STEM Award. The award honors highly accomplished women working in science, technology, engineering or mathematics who have made a positive impact on the trajectories of other women thinking about or newly embarking on STEM careers. “For many...
Deciphering clues to prehistoric climate changes locked in cave deposits
May. 27, 2015—Watch the VU Inside on Jessica Oster here. Read the Vanderbilt News story here. When the conversation turns to the weather and the climate, most people’s thoughts naturally drift upward toward the clouds, but Jessica Oster’s sink down into the subterranean world of stalactites and stalagmites. That is because the assistant professor of earth and...
Time when climate was topsy-turvy in Western U.S. aids climate prediction efforts
Mar. 2, 2015—Climate scientists now put the odds that the American Southwest is headed into a 30-year “mega drought” at 50/50. Meanwhile, the forecast for the Pacific Northwest is continued warming with slightly drier summers and even wetter winters. However, 21,000 years ago, at the peak of the last Ice Age, a period known as the Last...
Vanderbilt professor speaks on climate change at TEDxNashville
Jun. 1, 2014—Michael Vandenbergh, David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law and director of Vanderbilt’s Climate Change Research Network, recently spoke on “Buying Time: The Private Governance Response to Climate Change” at TEDxNashville. Professor Vandenbergh’s academic research explores the relationship between formal legal regulation and informal social regulation of individual and corporate behavior, the influence of social...
Climate Connections: Bridging the Gap Between Students and Sustainability
Mar. 19, 2014—Join SPEAR and VSG on Thursday, March 20, from 5-7 PM in Sarratt Cinema for an inspiring and informative discussion of the intersection of the environment with society. Through two TED Talks and an open panel, how climate change is intertwined with nearly everything that influences daily life, including economics, entrepreneurship, policy, food, health, and faith,...
In Class and Across Campus, Vanderbilt Helps Future Generations Find Relief for an Overstressed Planet
Mar. 18, 2014—[Originally published in Vanderbilt Magazine] Written by Joanne Lamphere Beckham From corporate boardrooms to statehouse chambers to the halls of academe, sustainability is one of this century’s biggest challenges. Although defined in many ways, sustainability is generally understood as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet...
Use water at ‘comfortable’ temperature to wash hands and fight global warming
Dec. 11, 2013—[Originally posted by Research News at Vanderbilt] Signs in many bathrooms across the country recommend washing hands in hot or warm water. In fact, if Americans could be persuaded en masse to use a comfortable water temperature when washing their hands, it could prevent the annual greenhouse gas emissions totaling the equivalent of the United...