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 new report commissioned by the National Science Foundation finds a culture of silence and fear among employees at U.S.-run facilities in Antarctica. -
The inventors of Corbevax said it was cheap, easy to make, effective and safe. They hoped it could bring vaccine equity to countries that can't access costlier shots. Has it lived up to its promise? -
The vaccine maker alleges that its rivals Pfizer and BioNTech used some patented features of its mRNA technology to develop their COVID vaccines. -
NASA's $10 billion new telescope showed the world something remarkable today: an image of some of the first galaxies to form in the universe. -
Peter Hotez and Maria Elena Bottazzi used an oldie-but- goodie technology to devise a vaccine that's easy to make — and relatively cheap. India has already ordered 300 million doses. -
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope successfully deployed its secondary mirror Wednesday after unfolding its enormous sunshield a day earlier. -
Two studies that have not yet been peer reviewed indicate increased protection against the infectious omicron variant. -
The deployment of the shade on the $10 billion telescope began Tuesday with the successful lowering of two arms known as Unitized Pallet Structures. -
A vaccine from a Canadian biotech firm Medicago has been found to be effective at preventing moderate to severe disease. It could soon become the first plant-based vaccine authorized for human use. -
Pfizer researchers looking for a drug to treat SARS found clues that gave the company a head start in its quest for a pill to treat COVID-19, including the omicron variant.
