Joe Palca
Joe Palca is a science correspondent for NPR. Since joining NPR in 1992, Palca has covered a range of science topics — everything from biomedical research to astronomy. He is currently focused on the eponymous series, "Joe's Big Idea." Stories in the series explore the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors. Palca is also the founder of NPR Scicommers – A science communication collective.
Palca began his journalism career in television in 1982, working as a health producer for the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC. In 1986, he left television for a seven-year stint as a print journalist, first as the Washington news editor for Nature, and then as a senior correspondent for Science Magazine.
In October 2009, Palca took a six-month leave from NPR to become science writer in residence at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Palca has won numerous awards, including the National Academies Communications Award, the Science-in-Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers, the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Prize, and the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Writing. In 2019, Palca was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism.
With Flora Lichtman, Palca is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011).
He comes to journalism from a science background, having received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he worked on human sleep physiology.
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After 10 weeks, hypertensive rats fed a diet consisting of 5 percent asparagus had lower blood pressure than their counterparts fed a standard rat diet.
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Underneath a receding glacier in the Canadian Arctic, researchers found something surprising: a kind of plant related to moss that was not only still green, but also growing.
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A test of third-year medical students in North Carolina revealed biases against the obese. The author of the study says these thoughts, often subconscious, could affect how doctors treat their patients and whether those patients trust them.
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Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age.
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Actually, fresh fish doesn't smell "fishy," says Joe Palca. He spent a recent morning watching Hawaii's fishermen sell some 50,000 pounds of catch on the auction floor and sends this postcard.
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This enterprising technologist is designing for a future where computers are intuitive and anticipate our every need. We're not there yet, but she has started a company that aims to imagine, build and test tomorrow's gadgets today.
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The planets orbiting far-off stars are close to Earth-sized and are a distance from their suns that makes their surfaces neither too hot nor too cold. Since launching in 2009, the Kepler telescope has identified more than 100 planets.
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Computer games aren't just for fun anymore — they're also valuable research tools. Scientists are taking complex problems — like trying to figure out how proteins fold and how neural networks work — and turning them into engaging games. And they need your help.
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The restaurant chain hopes a new system for analyzing big data sets will help it spot patterns of complaints across its more than 170 outlets in a matter of hours, not weeks. The goal: to spot problems small and big (soggy pickles? foodborne illness?) before they balloon.
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Crowd funding has proved popular for bands raising money to produce a new album and for producers of documentary films. Now scientists are getting into the act, and some are raising money from the very people they're studying.