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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A look at the week's COVID-19 and vaccine news, including new information from the variant out of the United Kingdom.
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An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration met on Thursday to review Moderna's application for emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine. NPR discusses the latest.
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Americans are waiting for the first doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, expected to be distributed very soon. Moderna also has a vaccine waiting for federal review.
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The Food and Drug Administration released its analysis of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. An independent committee will meet with the agency Thursday to discuss emergency use of the vaccine.
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The White House coronavirus task force briefed reporters on Thursday for the first time in months as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to avoid travel.
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The vaccine is nearly 95% effective in preventing illness, according to an interim analysis of a clinical test involving 30,000 people. -
Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is the first to have data showing that it exceeded the minimum effectiveness threshold set by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use. -
Here's irony: tobacco plants may be key in preventing COVID-19. Two companies are using the plants to produce proteins for a vaccine. One candidate vaccine is already in a clinical trial. -
The president's doctor has offered a fairly upbeat assessment of Trump's condition. But typically, only hospitalized COVID-19 patients in need of oxygen are given the drug. -
White House physician Sean Conley says that President Trump was doing "very well" and that the symptoms he had are resolving and improving.
