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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Two teams independently discover a way to turn ordinary human skins cells into stem cells with the same characteristics as those derived from human embryos, a breakthrough that could open the door for advanced medical therapies.
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California researchers have discovered that moray eels have a second set of jaws in the back of their throats with razor-sharp teeth that help them catch their prey. The findings are published in the latest issue of the science journal, Nature.
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As the temperature – and the wine-producing competition – heats up, Spanish winemakers, Torres wine, have headed for the cooler fields of the Pyrenees Mountains to grow grapes that can withstand changes in climate and the wine industry. -
In France's Bordeaux wine region, summers have been hotter, harvests have been earlier and grapes have been sweeter. Some winemakers welcome a warmer climate; they are getting more great vintages. Others are more wary, but say they can adapt. -
NASA's latest mission to Mars will send the Phoenix Lander to the Red Planet's northern poles, trenching deep into the icy water layers in search of mineral deposits and proof that life could have once existed.
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In 2004, South Korean scientists claimed to have derived embryonic stem cells from a cloned human embryo. The claim was discredited, but questions lingered. Now Harvard researchers say the South Koreans made a different sort of breakthrough.
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Humans exist at the mercy of the environment, and when climate is welcoming and stable, humans can't resist taking the opportunity to move into some new real estate. -
The science behind the debate over federal funding of stem-cell research has evolved since it first became a political issue. Opponents of stem-cell research suggest there are alternatives to using embryonic stem cells, while proponents say the cells could lead to cures of a number of diseases.
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Funding for biomedical research typically comes from the federal government. But federal restrictions on human embryonic stem-cell research have prompted several state governments to take matters into their own hands. -
Ten years after Dolly the cloned sheep was introduced to the world, scientists have yet to successfully clone a human embryo. But even mainstream scientists say it's still only a matter of time.
