Making Room for Ethics in Business Schools
Criticism and blame surrounding corporate scandals in recent years didn’t stop at the boardroom door. Business schools also have been faulted for not deterring and for possibly encouraging executive misconduct. In fact, several surveys suggest that, historically, no more than roughly one-third of business schools made ethics or related subjects a course requirement.

Analyzing State Supreme Court Cases
For political scientists and other scholars hungering for information on state supreme court decisions, Rice University’s State Supreme Court Data Project is a free all-you-can-eat buffet.

Examining the Pros and Cons of Global Capitalism
Most developmental economists believe that conditions of the world’s poor have improved in the past few decades as a result of modern global capitalism. Still, while the world’s wealthy nations have become richer, more than 1 billion people continue to live in extreme poverty. Perhaps, as Rice’s Doug Schuler and other university researchers suggest, the contentions by socialist economists regarding capitalism’s role in inequality and poverty may be truer than liberal economists care to admit.

Music Has the Charm to Influence Perception
Is it the message in a radio commercial or the music that influences a listener’s perception of a product? According to Rui Zhu, it depends on the target audience, the format of the message, and how the music is performed.

A One-Stop Shop for Middle East Research
A new digital archive at Rice’s Fondren Library has created a virtual time machine for visiting the Middle East between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Researchers interested in landmarks of Jerusalem can see historic black-and-white photos of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Mosque of Umar. Scholars wanting to know more about the geography and culture of Cyprus can access an interactive map to study everything from roads and rivers to topography and historical sites. Historians researching Syria under the Ottoman rule can read explorer Gertrude Bell’s The Desert and the Sown, an account of her 1905 travel across the Syrian Desert.

Study Could Change Treatment of Alcoholism
New findings by Rice psychologists could presage a change in the way therapists treat alcohol-dependent patients. They discovered that, in some cases, traditional therapy requires certain cognitive skills, such as abstract thinking, that alcohol-dependent patients initially may be incapable of performing.

Differences in Heart Attack Risk Is Not Black-and-White
Doctors may soon be able to specifically predict if and where fractures are likely to occur in patients with osteoporosis or other types of bone disease thanks to a portable, noninvasive device developed at Rice. Called the OsteoSonic, the device allows physicians to measure the actual structural integrity of bone tissue—something current imaging technology like X-rays or MRIs cannot do.

Ethical Challenges Posed By End-of-Life Care
The circumstances surrounding Terry Schaivo and six-month-old Knya Dismuke-Howard, both of whom died after being removed from life support, have fueled renewed debate over end-of-life care.

Martin Researches Benefits of Needle Exchange
Many opponents of needle-exchange programs argue that supplying drug users with clean needles sends the wrong message. But a researcher at Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy advises that they should be concerned about the message they actually are sending through their opposition.

A Community of Art
Providing a dynamic union of art and education is the goal of Rice University’s newest partnership with the museum community of Houston, the Rice University–Museum Collaborative Partnership.

A Commitment to Voter Rights
When the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act held a hearing in Montgomery, Alabama, last spring, seated among the seven commission members was Rice’s Chandler Davidson, the Radoslav A. Tsanoff Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Sociology. But he wasn’t there just to listen to the testimonies of lawyers and academicians specializing in voting rights, elected officials, and everyday citizens who wanted to share their experiences with discrimination against minority voters in the South. Davidson will draft a report summarizing information that the commission obtains through a series of four to six regional hearings around the nation.