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 omicron variant of the not been found in the United States yet. Here's what's we known about it, how dangerous it's likely to be, and whether vaccines or new drugs will be effective against it.
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Whatever happened to Novavax and Sanofi's COVID-19 vaccines? Many people thought at the beginning of the pandemic that these were the two most likely vaccines to succeed.
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The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized COVID vaccine boosters for all adults. We look at what this means for people who are considering getting their third shot.
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The companies say a study of more than 10,000 volunteers showed a vaccine efficacy of 95% or greater for people receiving the booster. -
Are vaccinated people who get COVID as likely to spread the infection as unvaccinated people? Scientists don't think so. -
Can a vaccinated person with a breakthrough infection infect others? Conventional wisdom says yes, but new research says it's not all that likely.
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An antiviral drug is said to reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations by half.
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Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced promising results from a study of a new antiviral drug. Molnupiravir reduced COVID hospitalizations or death by 50% in a trial involving 775 volunteers.
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The pharmaceutical company announced that its experimental pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people infected with the coronavirus. The findings are not peer reviewed.
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A Food and Drug Administration panel voted against giving most Americans a third Pfizer vaccine despite President Biden's plan to provide a COVID-19 booster to anyone over the age of 16.
