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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Melanoma can be a deadly skin cancer, but 10 years ago, biologist Jim Allison figured out a way to tweak the body's immune system to go after those malignant cells. Some patients are now cancer-free. -
Many combatants return from the battlefield with hearing loss. The U.S. Army has begun deploying a "smart earplug" system that can protect hearing without blocking crucial sounds.
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The module known as BEAM can be folded so it takes up less room in a cargo rocket, and then expanded once it reaches space. Or at least that's the hope. -
He shared chemistry's top prize in 1996 for finding buckyballs, and had Lou Gehrig's disease when he died. Making art was his first love. "Remember your humanity," he said, "and forget the rest." -
Eggs are among the strongest structures in nature. Watch this video by the eggheads at Joe's Big Idea to find out why!
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On Friday, a supply rocket is scheduled to send an inflatable module to the International Space Station. The expandable technology is being developed by a private firm. -
When summer brings heat, humidity and mosquitoes, cities along the Gulf Coast may become gateways for Zika into the U.S. Impoverished areas are likely to bear the brunt, health officials say. -
Astronomers have known about the powerful pulses but had never been able to catch one in the act to help figure out what's producing them. Last year, they got one. -
Scientists were studying the properties of the light coming from a quasar — one of the brightest objects in the universe — when the light just seemed to wink out. Now they think they know why. -
A city in Brazil is using a genetically modified mosquito to control the spread of diseases like Dengue fever and the Zika virus. NPR reports on whether the scheme is working.
