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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The race is on. What will it take to develop, test and distribute a safe and effective vaccine? -
In Corvallis, Ore, university volunteers are going into neighborhoods and offering residents a free self-test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in hopes of getting a more accurate snapshot of infections. -
Lung surfactant coats tiny air sacs in the lung. Without it, every breath is a struggle, like blowing up millions of little balloons. With surfactant, breathing is as easy as blowing soap bubbles. -
Scientists work tirelessly to find a coronavirus vaccine. But there are some questions to answer: How soon a viable vaccine would be developed? Would billions of people worldwide be able to to get it?
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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 vaccine, developed in a partnership between the pharmaceutical giant and a German biotech company, began trials on Monday with 360 volunteer subjects. -
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 antiviral drug remdesivir was developed to treat Ebola but never worked well. New research is looking into whether it could be effective for COVID-19 patients.
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Once a vaccine is developed, there is not going to be enough to supply the world. So who gets the vaccine, and who decides?
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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.
