Michaeleen Doucleff
Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD, is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. For nearly a decade, she has been reporting for the radio and the web for NPR's global health outlet, Goats and Soda. Doucleff focuses on disease outbreaks, cross-cultural parenting, and women and children's health.
In 2014, Doucleff was part of the team that earned a George Foster Peabody award for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. For the series, Doucleff reported on how the epidemic ravaged maternal health and how the virus spreads through the air. In 2019, Doucleff and Senior Producer Jane Greenhalgh produced a story about how Inuit parents teach children to control their anger. That story was the most popular one on NPR.org for the year; altogether readers have spent more than 16 years worth of time reading it.
In 2021, Doucleff published a book, called Hunt, Gather, Parent, stemming from her reporting at NPR. That book became a New York Times bestseller.
Before coming to NPR in 2012, Doucleff was an editor at the journal Cell, where she wrote about the science behind pop culture. Doucleff has a bachelor degree in biology from Caltech, a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Berkeley, California, and a master's degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis.
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Small electrical pulses make people feel that they can control their dreams, the hallmark of lucid dreams. But researchers are far away from inducing powers like those seen in the movie Inception.
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Expectant mothers are more likely to get into serious car crashes, a study finds. The risk is highest in the second trimester, when accident rates are similar to those for people with sleep apnea.
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Westerners tend to be more individualistic than Easterners. Did our ancestors plant these cultural differences hundreds of years ago when they chose which grains to grow?
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Two men have been infected with a virus newly discovered in dairy cattle, scientists say. The disease causes blisters on the hands and arms, and other symptoms similar to those caused by smallpox.
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Vitamin deficiencies near the time of conception change which genes get turned on during early development, scientists find.
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Passing gas, in some instances, may be a sign that you're kicking your gut microbes into action. And that means they can help keep you healthy, says one scientist.
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A look at the critters that live on money finds about 3,000 types of bacteria. Most are harmless. But researchers found traces of DNA from anthrax and drug-resistant pathogens, too.
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Inspired by toast's ascendance as a trendy snack du jour, we push "artisanal" toast in new directions. Using a blowtorch, coffee maker and dryer, we prove you can toast it yourself without a toaster.
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The Treasury Department says it erred in approving dehydrated versions of vodka and mojitos. Red tape will likely keep the high-proof powder off the market for a while.
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A mumps outbreak in Ohio has ballooned to 234 cases, even though the community is well-protected against the virus. One scientist explains why this "vaccine failure" occurs.