WINTER STORM
Officials: 2 dead in Texas as subfreezing cold sweeps US
Rice administered hundreds of vaccines to on-campus student, faculty and staff after the Harris County Public Health Department building lost power and backup generators failed, putting more than 8,400 coronavirus vaccines in jeopardy of spoiling.
Associated Press (This article also appeared in more than 1,100 publications.)
https://bit.ly/2OAGddq
Harris County hustles to distribute 8,400 COVID-19 vaccines after freezer loses power
Houston Chronicle
https://bit.ly/3baCwTw
Winter's wrath: Bitter cold, no power and a deadly tornado
Houston Chronicle
https://bit.ly/3apduAG
Cities and states begin delaying Covid-19 vaccine distribution because of winter storms
CNN
https://cnn.it/2NxxvvU
Texans try to conserve heat and water as plunging temperatures knock out utilities and cell service
CNN
https://cnn.it/3s01hbW
Storm delays vaccine shipments to Florida, Texas; China shuts down $3 million fake vaccine pipeline: Latest COVID-19 updates.
USA Today
https://bit.ly/2Zntjla
Winter storm impacting shipment of COVID -19 vaccine
Fox29
https://bit.ly/2LWt39R
Houston becomes winter wonderland for those spared from power outages, burst pipes
Rice sophomore Belén Szentes is pictured sledding down the Miller Outdoor Theatre hill.
Houston Chronicle
https://bit.ly/3djFvfa
Rice expert puts some outage blame on natural gas providers
Daniel Cohan, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is quoted about energy producers failing to prepare the winter storm.
KHOU
https://bit.ly/3pnUIxR
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL
‘The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,’ by Henry Louis Gates Jr.: An Excerpt
Anthony Pinn, founding director of Rice’s Center for African and African American Studies and the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities, is quoted in an excerpt from a review of the book ‘The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,’ by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
New York Times
https://nyti.ms/3qxiFEE
HOUSTON/TEXAS
Lessons in persuasion from the most celebrated American presidents
Douglas Brinkley, the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Professor in Humanities, is quoted on the success of President John F. Kennedy.
Houston Chronicle
https://bit.ly/3b82p6w
Houston teen gives up entire college savings to help her mom pay rent
Alondra Carmona is giving up her entire college savings to help pay for her mom's rent and prevent her from being evicted. The article mentions Carmona completed a research internship for cervical cancer at Rice.
KTRK
https://bit.ly/37jXG09
TRADE/PROFESSIONAL
Federal health care portal reopens for 3-month special enrollment period
Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy’s Center for Health and Biosciences, is quoted.
Marketplace.org
https://bit.ly/3puqzgu
Engineers develop polymer cores that redirect light from any source to solar cells
Rice engineers have suggested a colorful solution to next-generation energy collection: Luminescent solar concentrators in your windows. Led by Rafael Verduzco and postdoctoral researcher and lead author Yilin Li of Rice's Brown School of Engineering, the team designed and built foot-square "windows" that sandwich a conjugated polymer between two clear acrylic panels.
Techxplore.com
https://bit.ly/3jTGYtK
Collagen structures get the royal reveal
Collagen is the king of biological proteins, and now it has a SCEPTTr. That's the handle of an algorithm developed by Rice scientists who study natural and synthetic versions of collagen, which accounts for about a third of the body's proteins and forms the fibrous glue in skin, bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments. The Rice team led by chemist and bioengineer Jeffrey Hartgerink and graduate student Douglas Walker are featured.
Phys.org
https://bit.ly/37jWdao
2D coating research moves to second phase
Rice is mentioned.
Paint Square
https://bit.ly/3pqVgD6
OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST
NASA puts university students studying the ‘thin and glazed’ problem of lunar dust
An article mentions President John F. Kennedy’s “moon speech,” which was delivered at Rice Sept. 12, 1962.
Archyde.com
https://bit.ly/37l65jZ
SPORTS
Virginia has no answer for Florida State in a rare one-sided loss
Former Rice basketball player Trey Murphy is mentioned.
Houston Chronicle
https://bit.ly/3u3o1tk
NEWS RELEASES
Biden must act swiftly on China trade policy, Baker Institute expert says
Competition with China is the United States’ “existential challenge now and for the next three or four decades” and must be addressed by the White House immediately, according to a new report from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
https://bit.ly/3jTNG2K