Geoff Brumfiel
Geoff Brumfiel works as a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's science desk. His editing duties include science and space, while his reporting focuses on the intersection of science and national security.
From April of 2016 to September of 2018, Brumfiel served as an editor overseeing basic research and climate science. Prior to that, he worked for three years as a reporter covering physics and space for the network. Brumfiel has carried his microphone into ghost villages created by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. He's tracked the journey of highly enriched uranium as it was shipped out of Poland. For a story on how animals drink, he crouched for over an hour and tried to convince his neighbor's cat to lap a bowl of milk.
Before NPR, Brumfiel was based in London as a senior reporter for Nature Magazine from 2007-2013. There, he covered energy, space, climate, and the physical sciences. From 2002 – 2007, Brumfiel was Nature Magazine's Washington Correspondent.
Brumfiel is the 2013 winner of the Association of British Science Writers award for news reporting on the Fukushima nuclear accident.
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Starship is the largest rocket ever built. The company hopes it will one day take people to the moon and Mars. But first it has to fly. -
North Korea has successfully tested a solid-fueled ICBM, a type of missile that can be launched far more quickly than its current ones. -
New startups believe chatbot technology could help reduce the burden on physicians. But some academics warn bias and errors could hurt patients. -
Russia is using a dam it controls to release water from Ukraine's massive Kakhovka Reservoir. It's one of dozens of cases where the war is limiting access to safe water. -
Open AI released a new version of ChatGPT this week. It claims GPT-4 is more powerful than ever, and could even do your taxes. But a quick test drive revealed some problems.
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The photo from aboard the Air Force's legendary U-2 spy plane shows the Chinese balloon. But where, exactly, was it taken? It's actually possible to answer that question using clues from the image. -
Scientists want you to know that most balloons come in peace. They're used for experiments to look at everything from cosmic rays to the ozone layer. -
The U.S. government suspects that China's surveillance balloon may have blown off course. It wouldn't be the first time. -
Satellite data show water levels plummeting at the Kakhovka Reservoir. The reservoir supplies drinking water, irrigates vast tracts of farmland, and cools Europe's largest nuclear plant. -
Seismologists say Monday's earthquake took place in a complex junction of faults that was long overdue for a big one. The destructive shaking was spread across many kilometers.
