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Virginia Tech researchers are working with academic and industry partners in a $1 million pilot project to recover rare earth elements from coal.

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An international, multi-institutional team of researchers that includes a Virginia Tech graduate student recommends ways that humans can protect freshwater from salts in an article Friday (Feb. 26) in the journal Science.

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Two Virginia Tech researchers have discovered a way to maximize the amount of electricity that can be generated from the wastewater we flush down the toilet.

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Virginia Tech students were in a Durham Hall lab in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Friday morning, packing bottles and printing water-testing instructions for delivery to Flint, Michigan, to address a public health crisis.

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With the outbreak of viruses like Zika, chikungunya, and dengue on the rise, public health officials are desperate to stop transmission.

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Scientists had thought that most synapses of a similar type and in a similar location in the brain behaved in a similar fashion with respect to how experience induces plasticity. This study found dramatic differences in the plasticity response, even between neighboring synapses.

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Men who as children experienced a family member’s incarceration are approximately twice as likely to have a heart attack in later adulthood in comparison with men who were not exposed to such a childhood trauma, according to a study in the March Journal of Criminal Justice.

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Some of the most widely used commercial chemicals to kill bedbugs are not effective because the pesky insects have built up a tolerance to them, according to a team of researchers from Virginia Tech and New Mexico State University.

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Flint's 100,000 residents were exposed to lead-tainted water for more than 18 months. Virginia Tech's role in uncovering the problem has been widely reported around the world. Here are the details.

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Virginia Tech led a research team to make a beetle-inspired surface that uses chemical micropatterns to control the growth of condensation and frost. They were even able to create a surface where inter-droplet ice growth is completely stopped.

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Advocates of huge hydroelectric dam projects on the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong rivers often overestimate economic benefits and underestimate far-reaching effects on biodiversity, according to an article in the Jan. 8 issue of Science.

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Researchers found that the inherent flexibility of the immune system is even more complex than previously understood. Study reveals more about how memory cells arise after infections.

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Artists, designers, architects, and industry members are exploring concepts in glass design through the nation’s first Collaborative Glass Robotics Laboratory, an initiative of Virginia Tech and the Rhode Island School of Design.

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Using photography and laboratory simulations, researchers studied how dogs raise fluids into their mouths to drink. They discovered that sloppy-looking actions at the dog bowl are in fact high-speed, precisely timed movements that optimize a dogs’ ability to acquire fluids.

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The historic find -– made in South China -- by Virginia Tech researchers fills a huge gap in the known fossil record of kinorhynchs, small invertebrate animals that are related to arthropods.

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The goal of the research project is to investigate human-natural feedbacks in freshwater systems by examining the linkages between land-use decision-making, water quality, and collective action taken by the public to protect water quality.

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Biomedical researchers have suspected that a specific set of immune cells are responsible for causing disease in late-stage lupus patients, but until now they haven’t known for sure. An immunologist has found that these cells do not, in fact, contribute to late-stage lupus in mice.

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University leaders announced the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute has a new direction and a new name — the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech. The changes reflect the evolution of life science research at Virginia Tech and the university’s ability to continually innovate.

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A team of researchers led by a Virginia Tech faculty member has received $1.25 million from the National Science Foundation to introduce computational approaches to help students learn chemistry in an environment that encourages scientific discussion.

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In the first published results from a $386,000 National Cancer Institute grant awarded earlier this year, a paper by Scott Verbridge and Rafael Davalos in Scientific Reports has been published.

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Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have uncovered a mechanism in the brain that could account for some of the neural degeneration and memory loss in people with Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers, together with scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, discovered that a common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease – the accumulation of amyloid plaques along blood vessels – could be disrupting blood flow in the brain.

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The readings were collected during brain surgery as the conscious patients played an investment game, demonstrating rapid dopamine release encodes crucial information. The findings have implications for Parkinson’s disease and disorders such as depression and addiction.

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Robert Gourdie and his research team developed a peptide called aCT1 (pronounced act one) to inhibit connexin 43-caused overactivity. The result was damaged tissue healed more quickly, with lower amounts of inflammation and scarring.

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Quinn Thomas is leading the $2.6 million, five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Research partners include geophysical and biological scientists from multiple institutions.

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Mariana Falconier, associate professor and clinical director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Family Services at the Northern Virginia Center in Falls Church, has won a grant totaling $7.2 million for a five-year project to promote healthy relationships and economic stability among low-income couples.

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Warren Bickel, a professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, recently received a $2.4 million grant to investigate and improve maladaptive decision-making that may contribute to Type 2 diabetes.

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The study has implications for cancer research, as scientists try to understand how cells avoid errors that promote cancer development. It could also be useful in synthetic biology, where scientists work to make robust mechanisms for synthetic life.

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Proteins called cytokines are known to influence immune cell fate, but the process is complex. Researchers examined how a specific cytokine, interleukin-15, influences gene expression patterns in T helper cells.

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Researchers found that the webs of sun-soaked spiders were far more resistant to UVB rays than the webs of those that hunt in the dark or shade, perhaps indicating an important adaptive trait.

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A $750,000 National Science Foundation award will aid researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech to study circadian rhythms' effects on processes that affect numerous diseases and disorders, including cancer.

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Entrepreneurial students live together in a residential community where they can brainstorm, develop concepts, and create business plans.

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Virginia Tech fluid dynamics research explores why some plankton can breach the air-water interface while others can't

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Water-dependent w​ildlife populations in sensitive African dryland regions need continued access to limited ​surface water — even as human development increases — because restricting access ​and concentrating wildlife populations along riparian regions can impact water quality and, potentially, human health, according to Virginia Tech research.

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Three Virginia Tech computer scientists are unveiling a novel approach to discovering stealth attacks on computers at the annual ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

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The naturally occurring bacteria on a frog’s skin could be the most important tool for helping the animal fight off a deadly skin disease, according to an experiment conducted by Virginia Tech researchers.

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Virginia Tech is leading a $3.3 million, multi-center, five-year study that will track head impact exposure in children — the largest and most comprehensive biomedical study of youth football players to date.

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Peter Vikesland, an expert in the optimization of drinking water disinfection practices and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, is the principal investigator for a new five-year $3.6 million Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is aimed at mitigating the global public health threat of antibiotic resistance that affects drinking water.

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A team of Virginia Tech researchers has refined a mathematical model that simulates the impact of genetic mutations on cell division -- a step that could provide insight into errors that produce and sustain harmful cells, such as those found in tumors.

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Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists present a new molecular toolkit to investigate protein assemblies natively formed in the context of human disease. BRCA1 gene regulatory complexes from cancer cells were visualized for the first time.

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Scientists from Virginia Tech and the University of Bristol have revealed how pigment can be detected in mammal fossils, a discovery that may end the guesswork in determining the colors of long extinct species. The researchers discovered the reddish brown color of two extinct species of bat from fossils dating back about 50 million years, marking the first time the colors of extinct mammals have been described through fossil analysis.

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Antonio Trani, director of Virginia Tech’s Air Transportation Systems Laboratory and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, led a study that provided evidence for tactical recommendations on restricted cruise altitudes for aircraft crossing the North Atlantic oceanic airspace. The research is part of the Future Air Navigation System started in the 1990s that focused on communication between aircraft and air traffic control services.

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Researchers will determine how sociality and infectious disease interact and influence group and population level survival in social wildlife species.

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The insect – established in Panama and Costa Rica – is moving northward but has not yet arrived in the United States. Its potential arrival is a big concern among U.S. government agricultural officials.

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The authors monitored the social and foraging behaviors of wild flocks of house finches, a common backyard songbird, and the spread of a naturally-occurring bird disease called Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, which is similar to "pink eye" in humans but cannot be contracted by humans.

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The award, which carries $2.5 million in funding for five years and is renewable for a second five-year period, will establish the Virginia Tech National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure.

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Virginia Tech chemical engineers have developed a new approach that will have a huge impact in future materials design. Their findings are reported in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.