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With the Alliance to Advance Climate-Smart Agriculture, which is now underway, Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will distribute more than $57 million of the largest grant in the university’s history to producers to enact climate-friendly practices and serve as a pilot program for a national model.

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The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is underway in New York. Some are calling his crimes one of the biggest financial frauds in decades. The 31-year-old former crypto mogul is charged with orchestrating a conspiracy to use $10 billion that FTX’s customers had entrusted to him for venture capital investments, political donations and luxury real estate purchases.

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Taylor Swift’s Swifties and professional football fanatics typically do not rub elbows. But in the past two weeks, they’ve been finding some common ground.   When the pop superstar attended a Sunday night prime time NFL match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets, her appearance set in motion a frenzy of attention and situated the league in front of a new fan base.

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Linsey Marr, the Charles P. Lunsford Professor and a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, has been named a 2023 MacArthur Fellow, a highly prestigious award commonly called a “genius grant.” The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Wednesday that Marr is one of 20 fellows who will receive an $800,000 award.

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Agricultural productivity growth is crucial for ensuring food security and for meeting the nutritional needs of a growing global population while simultaneously meeting environmental goals. However, the growth of global agricultural productivity has significantly contracted and current efforts to sustainably expand production are inadequate, according to the 2023 Global Agricultural Productivity Report, or GAP Report, that was released through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech on Oct.

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The Virginia Tech College of Engineering has received a $10 million, five-year Department of Defense award to fund groundbreaking research with potential military and commercial implications.

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Crop modification can be traced to the beginning of agriculture and human civilization. Native Americans, for example, developed corn from a wild grass called teosinte more than 7,000 years ago. Methods to increase crop resiliency and sustainability have evolved, and improved, over time.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, people became well aware that viruses can be extremely harmful. But can viruses also be helpful? Bryan Hsu aims to find out by studying viruses that infect bacteria in the bellies of mammals. 

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The dew-covered spiderweb you see in your yard might soon become a platform to detect airborne viruses. This is the objective of Jiangtao Cheng, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,.

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As Netflix prepares to release a new streaming miniseries, "The Fall of the House of Usher," Ashley Reed, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, discusses author Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy and the evolving impacts of his work on literature and film.

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The “Barbie” buzz continues, even months after the blockbuster movie’s release. The box office record-breaking film now is available to rent or buy through various video on demand platforms, including Prime Video and Apple TV.

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Bulldogs, pugs, and boston terriers all have one thing in common - their short snouts, and experts say as climate change worsens, they are going to suffer.

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The first big tech trial in decades is underway as the Department of Justice takes Google to court, arguing it abused power as a monopoly to dominate the search engine business.   According to Virginia Tech expert James Ivory, the case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated business dealings so that its search engine would be people’s first option on their devices.

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For the past five years, a history professor has been working with a community in Guatemala to ensure that its water supply is safe. Recently, he received a national grant to continue this work.

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The acclaimed documentary “King Coal” mediates on the legacy of coal mining, exploring its influence on tradition and culture, and examining its impact on health and the environment.

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James Ivory, a Virginia Tech media technology expert, answers questions about the consequences of the ongoing strike for viewers, producers, actors and writers — and for those who appear to defy the strikes.

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With autumn set to start Sept. 23, leaf peepers won’t have long to wait for forest leaves to turn and produce spectacular color displays. The vistas to be found in Southwest Virginia are just about guaranteed to be jaw-dropping regardless of the upcoming weather.

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A late summer increase in COVID-19-related hospitalizations and the emergence of new coronavirus variants raises concerns about how best to counter infection and who should receive the newly-approved vaccines.

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Wildfires in Hawaii have devastated the island of Maui and leveled the historic town of Lahaina. As federal and local authorities investigate the causes of the disaster, questions have arisen about the effectiveness of government responses to the crisis.

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Thousands of people are dead and at least 10,000 missing after devastating flooding in Libya. The Mediterranean storm brought heavy rains to the northeastern part of the country, already crumbling from more than a decade of conflict.   “Although Storm Daniel caused the devastating flood, a combination of factors exacerbated the nation's vulnerability to natural hazards, resulting in enormous casualties,” says Virginia Tech geophysicist Manoochehr Shirzaei.

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The Richmond, Virginia-based Red Gates Foundation recently committed $50 million to the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC to accelerate health sciences research at Virginia Tech. The gift is among the largest ever made to the university.

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A federal award will help grow more rural-focused environmental health research and graduate training.

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In previous research, feed intake and egg production parameters were the most common response criteria that researchers used to measure energy responses in poultry. Professor Michael Persia in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences decided to take a look at energy levels in poultry from a different standpoint.

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For months, U.S. officials have been sniffing out malicious computer code that they suspect to be planted inside the power grid and communication control systems on U.S. military bases. Virginia Tech researchers already are working on a plan to secure future military base power grid operations and their critical missions from such threats.

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Over 3 million cats enter shelters in the United States each year, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.   

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Wildfires in Hawaii have devastated the island of Maui. Canada continues to experience its worst ever wildfire season, with more than 1,000 active fires. Brian Lattimer, Director of Virginia Tech’s Extreme Environments and Materials Lab, explains what the Maui and Canadian wildfires have in common.

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National news coverage from the two largest broadcast outlets, CNN and Fox News, not only reflects growing political polarization in America, but in a recent publication, researchers at Virginia Tech have shown that partisan and inflammatory broadcast coverage has increased over time and can exacerbate growing divides in the new public square of social media.

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When Virginia Tech and Purdue kick off a much-anticipated football game on Sept. 9, it will not be the only time the two universities share a field.

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For the first time in United States history, a former president has their mug shot taken and released to the public in connection to criminal charges. Donald Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia last night and was booked on felony charges alleging he participated in a criminal conspiracy to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

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The March on Washington brought a quarter of a million people to our nation’s capital six decades ago to protest rampant discrimination and peacefully demand equal rights for Black citizens.  

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John Chappell, a cardiovascular scientist in the Center for Vascular and Heart Research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, didn't quite believe what he was seeing.

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Alexander Brand, assistant professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has received a $600,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award.

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Virginia Tech researchers are leveraging a quantum-based discovery to help people see better in the dark.

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One Virginia Tech researcher wants to spread awareness about the science of breastfeeding, particularly for pregnant women with opioid use disorder and their advocates.

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In 2016, recognizing that lack of research in female animals was hampering the success of treatments for mood disorders, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) changed its policy for basic research to include sex as a biological variable for basic research, a move that triggered an explosion of research into sex differences.

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Tropical Storm Hilary packed a punch but wasn’t nearly as devastating as it could have been. Meanwhile Tropical Storm Franklin is battering the Caribbean. As we enter the height of hurricane season, Virginia Tech has a team of coastal experts available who can provide insight about hurricanes, flash flooding, storm surge, sea-level rise and emergency response.

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The start of a new school year can be exciting, but for some students it comes with fear and anxiety - especially for those who are victims of bullying. According to Virginia Tech psychologist Rosanna Breaux, about 1 in 4 children experience bullying in elementary school. “The hurtful behavior can happen in a variety of ways - physical, verbal, or social,” says Breaux.

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Bewildering as the premature arrival of Halloween merchandise might seem, the impetus for retailers to get the jump on a holiday can be readily explained as simple economic behavior. Jadrian Wooten, a Virginia Tech professor of economics, explained what drives these early holiday displays.

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Starting college is a big deal for students. It’s also a big deal for parents.   When students move into a campus residence hall or apartment, it may be the first time that they have lived away from home.

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Hundreds of people are still missing and rubble scorched ground is all that is left after wildfires decimated parts of Maui. Lahaina is facing years of rebuilding, as very little is left of the tourist town.   Liesel Ritchie is a disaster resilience expert and associate director of the Center for Coastal Studies at Virginia Tech.

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Hammerhead worms are once again making their way to backyards across the United States. They were most recently spotted in Washington, D.C and Virginia but have been around for some time.

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A new study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease by a Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine faculty member shows that brain levels of dietary lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, and vitamin E in those with Alzheimer’s disease are half those in normal brains. Higher dietary levels of lutein and zeaxanthin have been strongly linked to better cognitive functions and lower risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

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The National Institutes of Health has awarded $2.6 million to a Virginia Tech team over five years for a study of high frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE) for tumor ablation and immune system activation in cases of pancreatic cancer.

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Virginia Tech researchers examined data from 2009 to 2019 from U.S. institutions with more than $40 million in National Institutes of Health funding and at least 15 utility patents. The presence of a well-funded engineering unit correlated with stronger patent production. The results are in Nature Biotechnology.