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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NPR's science correspondent answers listener questions about the pace and process needed to develop a viable coronavirus vaccine.
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The impact of the drug on the virus is being studied, but there is not yet evidence from medical trials — and there have been some warnings about side effects from taking the medicine. -
Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna, Inc., is reporting preliminary data suggesting its COVID-19 vaccine is safe, and appears to be triggering an immune response in test subjects. -
A team of scientists at Oregon State University are trying to measure the true prevalence of the coronavirus in Corvallis, Ore., by taking a random sample of the population.
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Two scientists at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT say the newly developed test is so simple it could conceivably be done in someone's kitchen. -
The Trump administration is launching an operation to develop a coronavirus vaccine as early as January 2021. NPR's science and political correspondents discuss the project and its timeline.
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The group of experts, assembled under the agency run by Dr. Anthony Fauci, warns that using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin could result in potential toxicities. -
Several new types of tests for coronavirus infection are being developed. One uses the revolutionary gene-editing tool called CRISPR; another measures responses from cells in saliva.
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Researchers are racing to develop quick, home-based tests for the virus that could deliver test results in minutes. None do that yet, but several under development hold promise, scientists say. -
Pharmaceutical companies GSK and Sanofi are partnering to work on several vaccine candidates to fight the coronavirus.
