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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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is sponsoring a program to develop effective medical countermeasures to a pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic gave those plans a real-life challenge.
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Volunteers getting the shot help determine if a candidate vaccine works. But what with social distancing and masks, scientists must discern if it's the shot or these other measures preventing illness. -
David Legates, a professor whose research has been supported by fossil fuel companies, has been hired for a top position at the federal agency that oversees weather and climate forecasting. -
The company had placed its worldwide vaccine trials on hold for several days. It now says a safety review by regulators and reviewers is complete. No word on when studies in the U.S. might resume. -
Scientists and engineers in California are building a unique 3.2 billion pixel camera for a telescope under construction in Chile. The camera has taken its first test pictures — of broccoli. -
Several COVID-19 vaccine candidates are being tested now. But why does it take 30,000 volunteers to know if one is safe and effective? And what does it mean to say a vaccine candidate is working? -
A vaccine against the coronavirus needs to keep people from getting very sick and dying. But preventing the spread of the disease is also important, and vaccines delivered by nasal spray may do that. -
New vaccines usually take years to get the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. But the Trump administration suggests the FDA may greenlight a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. -
New vaccines usually take years to get the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. But the Trump administration suggests the FDA may greenlight a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.
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The president criticized the FDA this week for not giving emergency use approval to an experimental treatment for COVID-19. Scientists argue that the therapy still lacks sufficient evidence.
