A wearable, textile-based device developed by Rice University engineers could help declutter, enhance — and, in the case of impairments — compensate for deficiencies in visual and auditory inputs.

It should go without saying it takes guts to develop a low-cost procedure to treat gastroschisis. A team of Rice University students working on the problem had them in every way. The three members of Team Si-Low built a sophisticated system that would be simple for doctors in developing countries to execute as they help infants born with the condition, in which the abdominal wall is not fully closed and some of the child’s intestines r...

A team of Rice University students hopes a device they developed to train doctors and nurses in developing countries and low-resource areas in the U.S. to prevent and treat cervical cancer will improve the outlook for women with this disease. Cervical cancer kills close to 300,000 women per year worldwide, with approximately 85 percent of these deaths occurring in developing countries.

The Zfib team of Rice senior bioengineering students has created an add-on for automated external defibrillators – aka AEDs – that literally punches through the skin to help deliver a jolt to a person in cardiac arrest. With the help of advisers Eric Richardson, a Rice bioengineering lecturer, and Dr. Mehdi Razavi, a cardiologist at Texas Heart Institute, the students developed a needle-laden pad that can be pressed through both ...

It’s appropriate that during Parkinson’s Awareness Month, a team of Rice University seniors will show how augmented reality may help patients with the disease. Six Rice engineering students have designed an iPhone app to help patients overcome a symptom known as “freezing,” in which the legs temporarily refuse to follow the brain’s command to lift and move forward.

Rice University scientists have developed a novel technique to view a field of plasmonic nanoparticles simultaneously to learn how their differences change their reactivity. Their new method is called snapshot hyperspectral imaging (SHI), which up to now has been used primarily in astronomy. SHI allows researchers to view minute differences between otherwise identical nanoparticles and see how they react in response to light and environmental cha...

Rice University scientists who introduced laser-induced graphene (LIG) have enhanced their technique to produce what may become a new class of edible electronics. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour, which once turned Girl Scout cookies into graphene, is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials to quickly embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves.

The first clinical study of a low-cost, hand-held jaundice detector invented by Rice University students couldn’t have come at a better time for NEST360°, an international team of scientists, doctors and global health experts preparing for a competition for $100 million from the MacArthur Foundation. The money would allow the team to carry out its visionary plan to halve the number of newborn deaths in African hospitals within 10 years.

Researchers investigating ways to deliver high doses of cancer-killing drugs inside tumours have shown they can use a laser and light-activated gold nanoparticles to remotely trigger the release of approved cancer drugs inside cancer cells in laboratory cultures. The study by researchers at Rice University and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Motorised molecules driven by light have been used to drill holes in the membranes of individual cells and show promise for either bringing therapeutic agents into the cells or directly inducing the cells to die. Researchers at Rice, Durham (U.K.) and North Carolina State universities demonstrated in lab tests how rotors in single-molecule nanomachines can be activated by ultraviolet light to spin at 2 to 3 million rotations per second and o...

  In their work toward 3D printing transplantable tissues and organs, bioengineers and scientists from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine have demonstrated a key step on the path to generate implantable tissues with functioning capillaries.

Nanotechnologists from Rice University and China's Tianjin University have used 3D laser printing to fabricate centimeter-sized objects of atomically thin graphene. The research could yield industrially useful quantities of bulk graphene and is described online in a new study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. "This study is a first of its kind," said Rice chemist James Tour, co-corresponding author of the...

The endothelial cells that line blood vessels are packed tightly to keep blood inside and flowing, but scientists at Rice University and their colleagues have discovered it may be possible to selectively open gaps in those barriers just enough to let large molecules through — and then close them again. Rice bioengineer Gang Bao and collaborators at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology reported using magnets to help ...

A wireless, battery-less pacemaker that can be implanted directly into a patient’s heart is being introduced by researchers from Rice University and their colleagues at the Texas Heart Institute (THI) at the IEEE’s International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in Honolulu. The internal components of a battery-free pacemaker introduced this week by Rice University and the Texas Heart Institute.

  Researchers at Rice University and the Indian Institute of Science have an idea to simplify electronic waste recycling: crush it into nanodust. Specifically, they want to make the particles so small that separating different components is relatively simple compared with processes used to recycle electronic junk now.

Scientists at Rice University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that laser-induced graphene (LIG) is a highly effective anti-fouling material and, when electrified, bacteria zapper. LIG is a spongy version of graphene, the single-atom layer of carbon atoms. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed it three years ago by burning partway through an inexpensive polyimide sheet with a laser, which turned the su...

Rice University's latest nanophotonics research could expand the colour palette for companies in the fast-growing market for glass windows that change colour at the flick of an electric switch. In a paper in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano, researchers from the laboratory of Rice plasmonics pioneer Naomi Halas report using a readily available, inexpensive hydrocarbon molecule called perylene to create glass that can turn ...

A chunk of conductive graphene foam reinforced by carbon nanotubes can support more than 3,000 times its own weight and easily bounce back to its original height, according to Rice University scientists. Better yet, it can be made in just about any shape and size, they reported, demonstrating a screw-shaped piece of the highly conductive foam.

Researchers at Rice University have come up with a better X-ray contrast agent, which may allow for very precise tracking of cells, biomolecules, and other particles within the body. In particular, the researchers believe that seeing whether stem cells are moving towards and healing diseased tissue will be one of the first important applications for this technology. The particles consist of very short (20-80 nm) nanotubes, along with bismuth...

The Rice lab of materials scientist Rouzbeh Shahsavari performed an atom-level computer analysis of tobermorite, a naturally occurring crystalline analog to the calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H) that makes up cement, which in turn holds concrete together. By understanding the internal structure of tobermorite, they hope to make concrete stronger, tougher and better able to deform without cracking under stress.