Environment

Rice lab grows macroscale, modular materials from bacteria

Rice bioscientists have created bacteria that self-assembles into a material like putty that could soak up pollutants.

Can fungi help Texas’ grasses cope with climate change?

Rice biologists are using Texas as a living lab to study how symbiotic fungi help grasses tolerate drought.

Racial segregation magnifies effects of childhood lead exposure

Racial segregation magnifies the effects of childhood lead exposure according to new research from Rice, Duke and Notre Dame

Rice improves catalyst that destroys ‘forever chemicals’ with sunlight

Rice chemical engineers have improved their light-powered catalyst for destroying forever chemical PFOA.

Agriculture emissions pose risks to health and climate

Rice researchers find the economic cost of emissions from agriculture and their risks to populations through air pollution and climate change.

Getting ourselves back to the garden

A prairie garden at Rice University demonstrates the benefits of replacing manicured lawns with resilient plants and grasses that need little maintenance and help protect the environment.

Rice Architecture faculty among New York’s finest

Rice Architecture's Wortham Fellows are among recipients of this year's Architectural League of New York Prize for Young Architects.

Rice process aims to strip ammonia from wastewater

Engineers develop a high-performance nanowire catalyst that pulls ammonia and solid ammonia (fertilizer) from nitrate in wastewater.

Treated plastic waste good at grabbing carbon dioxide

Rice University chemists treat waste plastic to absorb carbon dioxide from flue gas streams more efficiently than current processes.

Humanities hosts daylong visit for high schoolers hoping to study the environment

These students picked Rice for a reason

Gas flares tied to premature deaths

Rice engineers suggest that flaring of natural gas at oil and gas fields in the United States, primarily in North Dakota and Texas, contributed to dozens of premature deaths in 2019.

Environmental champions win Rice grants

The Rice University Sustainable Futures Fund backs six projects to help bolster the planet’s environmental health.

Rare earth elements await in waste

Rice University scientists applied their flash Joule heating process to coal fly ash and other toxic waste to safely extract rare earth elements essential to modern electronics and green technologies.

Machine learning fine-tunes flash graphene

Rice University scientists are using machine learning techniques to streamline the process of synthesizing graphene from waste through flash Joule heating.

Rice conference on natural disasters draws international panelists, attendees

The Nov. 19-20 conference focused on narratives around natural catastrophes in the Americas and Circum-Caribbean