Current News

Spring breaks

This semester, Rice’s traditional spring break has been broken up into five separate “sprinkle days” due to coronavirus restrictions.

Rice mourns death of Ilinca Stanciulescu, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering

Ilinca Stanciulescu, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice, died Sunday after battling cancer. She was 49.

New sensation: Grad student symposium hosts international experts on five senses

‘Making Sense’ draws scholars from diverse array of disciplines March 12-13 for an international conference on humanistic research.

Rice University experts to be featured at CERAWeek

Rice is an academic partner of CERAWeek, with the university's Energy and Natural Resources Initiative spearheading its involvement. The annual conference, which usually takes place in Houston, will be held online this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rice earns Tree Campus USA recognition for ninth straight year

Rice received the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus USA designation for the ninth consecutive year in 2020.

Rice offering undergraduate major in business starting this fall

HOUSTON – (March 1, 2021) – Rice University will offer an undergraduate major in business beginning this fall.

Bottling the world's coldest plasma

Rice University physicists have discovered a way to trap the world's coldest plasma in a magnetic bottle, a technological achievement that could advance research into clean energy, space weather and astrophysics.

Quantum quirk yields giant magnetic effect, where none should exist

In a twist befitting the strange nature of quantum mechanics, physicists have discovered the Hall effect — a characteristic change in the way electricity is conducted in the presence of a magnetic field — in a nonmagnetic quantum material to which no magnetic field was applied.

Rice team forges path toward geothermal future

Rice scientists have joined a federal project to accelerate breakthroughs in geothermal systems for unlimited, inexpensive energy.

Cerium sidelines silver to make drug precursor

Rice scientists have developed a simplified method to make fluoroketones, a drug precursor that typically requires an expensive silver catalyst.

Elhadji Diop does it all at Rice

Normally, a stage name is reserved for actors and musicians, but Elhadji Diop has created such a name for himself at Rice

Bioinformatics tool accurately tracks synthetic DNA

A Rice computer science lab challenges -- and beats -- deep learning in a test to see if a new bioinformatics approach effectively tracks the lab of origin of a synthetic genetic sequence.

Chip simplifies COVID-19 testing, delivers results on a phone

Programmed magnetic nanobeads paired with an off-the-shelf cellphone and plug-in diagnostic tool can diagnose COVID-19 in 55 minutes or less.

Theory could accelerate push for spintronic devices

A theory by Rice scientists could boost spintronics, a key to creating faster and more powerful electronic devices, including quantum computers.

Farmers in developing countries can protect both profits and endangered species

HOUSTON – (Feb. 23, 2021) – Low-income livestock farmers in developing countries are often faced with a difficult dilemma: protect their animals from endangered predators, or spare the threatened species at the expense of their livestock and livelihood.