Natural Sciences

Rice-developed device helps premature babies in developing countries breathe without damaging eyesight

A new medical device developed by Rice University students will help premature babies in developing countries receive life-saving oxygen without damaging their eyesight.

32 Rice students, alums win NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

The National Science Foundation has awarded Graduate Research Fellowships to 32 current, incoming and former Rice students, and selected another six for honorable mention.

Rice mourns passing of Manik Talwani

Rice is mourning the death of Manik Talwani, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.

Physicists find unusual waves in nickel-based magnet

Rice physicists and collaborators have discovered “spin exciton” excitations can ripple through a nickel-based magnet as a coherent wave.

NASA’s head of science visits Rice students

Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, visited with students from the departments of Physics and Astronomy and Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences April 3.

Ocean warming intensifies viral outbreaks within corals

A groundbreaking three-year study has found evidence that ocean warming can trigger outbreaks of viruses that attack the symbiotic algae inside corals.

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.