New fluorescent dye can light up the brain
Rice chemist Han Xiao and Stanford researcher Zhen Cheng have developed a tool for noninvasive brain imaging that can help illuminate hard-to-access structures and processes. Their small-molecule dye is the first of its kind that can cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing researchers to differentiate between healthy brain tissue and a glioblastoma tumor in mice.
DARPA grant will fund hunt for drug that can keep people warm
Rice University bioengineer Jerzy Szablowski has won a prestigious DARPA Young Faculty Award to identify nongenetic drugs that can temporarily enhance the human body’s resilience to extreme cold exposure.
Rice University scientists get fungi to spill their secrets
As anyone who has ever attended a cocktail party can tell you, shedding inhibitions makes you more talkative and possibly more prone to divulging secrets. Fungi, it turns out, are no different from humans in this respect.
