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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Even if the Biden administration releases all available doses of COVID-19 vaccines, supplies will remain limited. How best to use that limited supply is a question mathematicians can help answer. -
Mathematical models can help public health officials decide how best to deploy the COVID-19 vaccine when it is in short supply.
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A look at the week's COVID-19 and vaccine news, including new information from the variant out of the United Kingdom.
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Americans are waiting for the first doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, expected to be distributed very soon. Moderna also has a vaccine waiting for federal review.
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The Food and Drug Administration released its analysis of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. An independent committee will meet with the agency Thursday to discuss emergency use of the vaccine.
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The White House coronavirus task force briefed reporters on Thursday for the first time in months as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to avoid travel.
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Pfizer and partner BioNTech say that their COVID-19 vaccine was 90% effective in a group of 94 volunteers. The companies say it could be submitted for FDA approval this month or next.
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The British government has announced plans for a coronavirus vaccine challenge trial. Volunteers will receive an experimental vaccine and be exposed to the virus to test its efficacy.
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Here's irony: tobacco plants may be key in preventing COVID-19. Two companies are using the plants to produce proteins for a vaccine. One candidate vaccine is already in a clinical trial. -
Large-scale safety and efficacy trials of experimental vaccines in tens of thousands of volunteers are underway. Answers about the trials are likely to come late this year.
