Free Republic

Identity politics has corrupted academic disciplines and produced bad, politically warped forms of knowledge, says Alka Sehgal Cuthbert in Spiked, and even the hard sciences are no longer immune. Here’s an excerpt. Witness the introduction of ‘Afrochemistry’, a new module in Rice University’s undergraduate chemistry degree. Students who choose this module will “apply chemical tools and analysis to understand black life in the U.S.” and “implement African-American sensibilities [eh? How do you “implement” a “sensibility”?] to analyse chemistry”, according to Rice’s website. “No prior knowledge of chemistry or African-American studies is required for engagement in this course,” it assures prospective...

(JTA) — An LGBTQ student group at Rice University has cut ties with the school’s Hillel, in the latest instance of backlash from a progressive group against the Jewish campus organization’s support for Israel. The LGBTQ group, Rice Pride, announced the split last week in a statement on Instagram that said Hillel’s international umbrella group was “not reflective of the values of inclusion upheld by Rice Pride.” “Rice Pride’s ultimate goal is to provide a safe space for queer students of all backgrounds, and to recognize the intersectionalities between queer identity and race, ethnicity, and religion,” the statement said. The...

Five years ago, my son was deciding on a college, and in the end, it came down to U.C. Berkeley or Rice University. He picked Rice because it was smaller and provided more opportunities, and it made his parents happy, because we knew that Berkeley would be a hostile place for a conservative student. However, our college experience proved that as far as ideology is concerned, there is no right choice today, no matter which college you pick. Considering that almost half of Rice students come from Texas, we were surprised to discover how liberal the student population was. "Culture...

Longtime Democratic state Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City is switching parties as Republicans press to make new inroads in South Texas and after redistricting made his district much more favorable to the GOP. Guillen was set to make the announcement Monday morning during a news conference in Floresville where he was joined by Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont. "After much consideration and prayer with my family, I feel that my fiscally conservative, pro-business, and pro-life values are no longer in-step with the Democrat Party of today, and I am proudly running as a Republican...

"One of my bigger concerns is that there has long been a strong Trump following in the military. People in the military have every right to be conservative or extremely conservative. But Trump’s supporters in the military who think that what happened [on Jan. 6] was a good thing need to be managed out of the military as soon as possible. That probably won’t happen until the Trump loyalists are out, but that needs to be done. We’re not talking about half a dozen people. We’re probably talking about thousands across the Department of Defense. Many of them will have...

Nanotube wires self-assemble under the influence of a directed electric field from the Tesla coil. Credit: Jeff Fitlow ======================================================================================================== Scientists at Rice University have discovered that the strong force field emitted by a Tesla coil causes carbon nanotubes to self-assemble into long wires, a phenomenon they call "Teslaphoresis." The team led by Rice chemist Paul Cherukuri reported its results this week in ACS Nano. Cherukuri sees this research as setting a clear path toward scalable assembly of nanotubes from the bottom up. The system works by remotely oscillating positive and negative charges in each nanotube, causing them to chain together...

Laser cutters use lasers to cut shapes into existing material, but Rice University scientists have figured out how to make one build objects instead of cut them. The result is the $2,000 3D printer that you see above, constructing the blood vessel network inside a mouse liver. If we want to maximize the usefulness of 3D printers, we have to maximize the number of materials they can work with, while minimizing the cost. That was the goal of the Rice scientists, when they devised a way to make a 3D printer with a couple of days, a couple of thousand...

Rice University has installed the Titan Themis scanning/transmission electron microscope, which will enable scientists from Rice as well as academic and industrial partners to view and analyze materials at angstrom-scale (one-tenth of a nanometer) resolution, about the size of a single hydrogen atom. Images will be captured with a variety of detectors, including X-ray, optical and multiple electron detectors and a 4K-resolution camera (will create 4K ultra HD images). The microscope gives researchers the ability to create three-dimensional structural reconstructions and carry out electric field mapping of subnanoscale materials. Electron microscopes use beams of electrons rather than light to illuminate...

Televised congressional hearings often serve as a platform for members of Congress to berate, bloviate and showboat for the cameras, but at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, historian Douglas Brinkley wouldn't stand for it. The topic at hand was drilling in the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The trouble began when Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young misstated Brinkley's name after referring to the hearing as "an exercise in futility." In a certain breach of protocol, Brinkley cut him off.

During the UT-Rice game on Saturday the Rice University marching band (Owls) took to the field at half time and to the delight of those in the stands, made some comments about Rick Perry. “The next time you go to the polls, ask yourself, ‘Is your candidate smarter than an Aggie?’” This video [:33] was posted to YouTube on September 3, 2011

It was a Saturday on campus when David Sedmak, a Rice University police officer, heard "Officer down, officer down!" on his scanner: Two members of the Houston Police Department had been shot downtown. Sedmak rushed to the scene to help his fellow officers. But Rice didn't see Sedmak as a hero. Instead, the university fired him, citing "dereliction of duty." The university said in a statement that its officers often assist other law enforcement agencies when the need arises. But Sedmak erred, it said, by not informing the university police dispatcher about where he was. "Sedmak left his post when...

When the Republican Party took control of the Texas House of Representatives in 2003, most pundits placed its Democratic members well out in the political wilderness. But new research by Rice political scientist Mark Jones indicates that over time, the Democrats progressively increased their ability to affect the laws coming out of the legislature... Jones, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies, chair of the Department of Political Science and a Baker Institute Rice scholar, looked at the ability of the legislature's leadership to control the partisan agenda... Jones measured each representative's FPV win rate -- the percentage...

Scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard are reporting this week that they can overcome a fundamental barrier to the continued rapid miniaturization of computer memory that has been the basis for the consumer electronics revolution. In recent years the limits of physics and finance faced by chip makers had loomed so large that experts feared a slowdown in the pace of miniaturization that would act like a brake on the ability to pack ever more power into ever smaller devices like laptops, smartphones and digital cameras. But the new announcements, along with competing technologies being pursued by companies like IBM...

Republican Representative for Texas Ron Paul spoke to Rice students last week to share his personal opinion on the state of the economy and discuss how to restore the United States back to a responsible fiscal system. "The system we have today has failed," he said. Paul, a two-time presidential candidate, decided to become involved in politics after President Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard in 1971. Since then, United States currency has operated on the fiat system, where the value of the money is based solely on faith in government to back the value of...

With the Starship Enterprise seemingly doomed after losing warp power, Mr. Spock exposes himself to lethal radiation in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. After repairing the engines and saving the day, Spock dies. Evidently, the movie's writers didn't think scientists would find a drug to cure radiation poisoning by the late 23rd century. Yet local scientists may be on the verge of doing just that more than two centuries before the setting of the Star Trek film. Rice University's Jim Tour and his colleagues at two Houston health institutions have found a drug that, when given to mice...

resident Bill Clinton spoke about global challenges from terrorism to health care policy to sustainability at a near-capacity crowd at Autry Court yesterday afternoon. The topic of the speech was “Embracing our Common Humanity: Meeting the Challenges of Global Interdependence in the 21st Century.” Baker Institute Director, Ambassador Edward Djerejian, President David Leebron and former Secretary of State — and Honorary Chair of the Baker Institute for Public Policy — James Baker each made opening remarks. After lamenting the length of time Clinton took to schedule a trip to Rice, Baker drew laughter from the audience by alluding to Senator...

ongress helps college students with loan relief By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff Given a lack of monetary influence, college students are an oft-ignored demographic in the policy making process. That is why we are so glad to see that one of the 110th Congress’ first moves was a bipartisan supported bill to lower interest rates on need-based student loans. H.R. 5, The College Student Relief Act of 2007, will lower interest rates from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next 5 years. Once fully implemented, this step will save the average borrower — students...

For American politics in 2007, the focus is largely on the Democratic Party’s sweep into power on a wave of Republican corruption and failed policy. But just to the west of Rice, the deep-red District 7 bucked the trend, electing conservative talk radio host Dan Patrick to the Texas Senate. Patrick goes beyond the talk radio stereotype of the millionaire egocentric self-promoter who repeats the xenophobic talking points that allow white, middle-age males to think they are an oppressed minority. On air, Patrick cornered the market on attacking not just the usual political enemies — the growing Hispanic population and...

HOUSTON -- Note: The following story is a verbatim transcript of an Investigators story that aired on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2006, on KPRC Local 2 at 10 p.m. Houston's Rice University is one of the best universities in the country. It's pricey and prestigious. But, along with the privilege of getting a first-class education, KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis discovered Rice students may also be getting a pass from police when it comes to drinking and driving. There's a beer keg in the bathroom and punch in the refrigerator. This is Rice University's annual night of decadence where...

Chemists at Rice University have discovered how to assemble gold and silver nanoparticle building blocks into larger structures based on a novel method that harkens back to one of nature's oldest known chemical innovations -- the self-assembly of lipid membranes that surround every living cell. The research appears in the Nov. 29 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS 2006, 128, 15098). Researchers believe the new method will allow them to create a wide variety of useful materials, including extra-potent cancer drugs and more efficient catalysts for the chemical industry.The method makes use of the hydrophobic effect,...