Natural Sciences

James Chappell wins NSF CAREER Award

Rice bioscientist James Chappell has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to develop RNA programming methods that can improve human health and the environment.

Rice selects Lane Martin to lead new Advanced Materials Institute

Lane Martin has been appointed director of the new Rice Advanced Materials Institute and Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.

Rice labs seek RNA programming for ‘smart’ antibiotics

Rice University synthetic biologists are working to make “genetically encoded antibiotics” that kill only disease-causing bacteria.

Rice’s Hanyu Zhu wins NSF CAREER Award

Rice materials scientist Hanyu Zhu has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, which includes a five-year research grant to probe quantum materials modified by terahertz quantum fluctuations.

Lab Notes for Feb. 27, 2023

Solomon launches Wild World podcast; Meteorite discovery in South Texas

Rice team begins ambitious quantum entanglement research

A Rice research team has begun an ambitious three-year project to see quantum entanglement among billions of particles in a solid material thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the Keck Foundation.

Lab Notes for Feb. 20, 2023

Rice joins neutrino megaproject. Engineering launches energy transition initiative. McHugh lands cancer research grant. Keck Foundation funds quantum research. West named Cottrell Scholar.

Potential for profits gives Rice lab’s plastic waste project promise

Rice University scientists create carbon nanotubes and other hybrid nanomaterials out of plastic waste using an energy-efficient, low-cost, low-emissions process that could also be profitable.

Black girls benefit most when STEM teachers train up

When middle and high school teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics pursue continuing professional development, their students benefit, and a new study from Rice University shows the payoff can be dramatic.

Molecular machines could treat fungal infections

Rice scientists show that light-activated nanoscale drills can kill pathogenic fungi.

Naomi Halas named University Professor

Rice University has promoted nanotechnology pioneer Naomi Halas to its highest academic rank, University Professor. Halas, a 33-year member of Rice’s faculty, becomes only the 10th person and second woman to earn the title in Rice’s 111-year history.

Nanoparticles make it easier to turn light into solvated electrons

Chemists from Rice, UT Austin and Stanford have uncovered the long-sought mechanism of a light-driven process that creates solvated electrons, inherently clean chemical reactants that are attractive for green chemistry.

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.

DNA repair scheme gets closer look for cancer therapy

Rice bioscientists took a close look at one of the ways cells repair broken DNA and made a discovery about a promising target for cancer therapy.

​​​​​​​Lab lights way to simple chemical synthesis

Rice University scientists have developed a photochemical process to simplify the synthesis of drug and chemical precursors known as diamines.