Fellows Ed Emmett and David Gantz explore climate change, international shipping, and what happens when a vital passage for global supply chains becomes unreliable.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a gap in our ability to track and stop the spread of infectious diseases. With funding from the National Science Foundation, a Rice University research team is engineering bacteria to sustainably and continuously monitor wastewater for viruses.
Alicia L. Johnson, Kirstin R.W. Matthews, Caroline SniderNovember 1, 2023
The work of Katalin Karikó, 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine recipient, laid a foundation for the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that saved close to 20 million lives worldwide. But her discoveries almost did not happen, writes Alicia L. Johnson, a civic science postdoctoral associate at the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences. Karikó’s story highlights the vital importance of supporting women in STEM.
As China appears ever closer to attempting a coercive annexation of Taiwan, this report explores how such a move could trigger a chain of nuclear proliferation — potentially adding thousands more warheads to stockpiles globally.
Gabriel Collins, Andrew S. EricksonOctober 25, 2023
Prioritizing the safety and capacity of reconstruction workers can speed up the disaster recovery process and make communities more resilient to future hazards, write Drs. William Brett Perkison and Bill Christian, researchers at UTHealth Houston.
William Brett Perkison, Bill ChristianOctober 23, 2023
Hama's Oct. 7 attack on Israel threatens to undermine a key pillar of Saudi Arabia’s foreign and domestic agenda: the “de-risking” of the region, writes fellow Kristian Coates Ulrichsen.
Houston faces long-term financial challenges, including a persistent structural budget deficit. Fellow John Diamond examines the fiscal issues at stake and explores opportunities for government, industry, and community to help the city thrive in the coming decades.
In the fight against Mexican criminal cartels, social network analysis can predict and map out their alliances and subgroups — using algorithms to predict new connections. In this commentary, Nonresident Scholar in Drug Policy and Mexico Studies Nathan P. Jones and his co-authors outline their recent work in the field.
Nathan P. Jones, Oscar Contreras Velasco, John P. Sullivan, Chris Callaghan, Irina Chindea, Daniel Weisz ArgomedoOctober 18, 2023
The deepening conflict in Gaza reveals the risk of being a global power. It’s time for us to substantially reduce U.S. commitments around the world — or dramatically increase the resources we commit to defending our far-flung interests, writes fellow Joe Barnes.