
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.
-
Using two different COVID-19 vaccines is a bit like giving the immune system two pictures of the virus, maybe one face-on and one in profile.
-
The three vaccines available in the U.S. are safe and effective, but not ideal. Now, work is underway to create more convenient and potent vaccines, including a tablet and nasal spray.
-
Novavax says its COVID-19 vaccine is 89% effective at preventing illness, according to an interim analysis of a U.K. study. But the vaccine wasn't as effective against some viral variants.
-
Mathematical models can help public health officials decide how best to deploy the COVID-19 vaccine when it is in short supply.
-
A look at the week's COVID-19 and vaccine news, including new information from the variant out of the United Kingdom.
-
The vaccine is nearly 95% effective in preventing illness, according to an interim analysis of a clinical test involving 30,000 people.
-
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.
-
The president's doctor has offered a fairly upbeat assessment of Trump's condition. But typically, only hospitalized COVID-19 patients in need of oxygen are given the drug.
-
White House physician Sean Conley says that President Trump was doing "very well" and that the symptoms he had are resolving and improving.
-
Volunteers getting the shot help determine if a candidate vaccine works. But what with social distancing and masks, scientists must discern if it's the shot or these other measures preventing illness.