Joe Palca

Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide

Joe Palca — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:46:00 +0000

Climate scientists have a good reason to want to get away from it all. To get an accurate picture of the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, you have to find places where the numbers won't be distorted by cities or factories or even lots of vegetation that can have a major local impact on CO₂ concentrations.

Starting in 1958, scientists from the Scripps Institution for Oceanography have been using an instrument on the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii to measure CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Wake Up And Smell The Tuna? Sunrise At Honolulu's Fish Auction

Joe Palca — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:04:00 +0000

If you are up at 5 in the morning in Honolulu and are wondering what to do, I have a suggestion: Head over to Pier 38 and watch the Honolulu Fish Auction. It's quite a scene.

Getting up at 5 may seem a bit extreme, but for recent arrivals to Hawaii from the East Coast of the mainland — as I was last Friday — the six-hour time difference makes waking up early easy, if not inevitable.

The auction takes place in a low-slung single-story building toward the end of the pier. At about 1 a.m., fishing boats start bringing in their catch.

Envisioning The Future With Cori Lathan

Joe Palca — Tue, 07 May 2013 06:59:00 +0000

Computers were created to be useful tools, but all too often it's still a chore to get technology to do our bidding.

Corinna Lathan imagines a future that's no longer a chore, where computers understand our wants and needs so well that we don't even have to think about telling them what to do. She's an inventor who has started her own company, AnthroTronix, to make that kind of intuitive technology part of our lives.

Kepler Telescope Spots 3 New Planets In The 'Goldilocks Zone'

Joe Palca — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:14:00 +0000

Astronomers have found three planets orbiting far-off stars that are close to Earth-sized and in the "habitable zone": a distance from their suns that makes the planets' surfaces neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.

One of the three planets orbits a star with the prosaic name Kepler-69.

"Kepler-69 is a sun-like star," says Thomas Barclay, a research scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute who uses the Kepler space telescope, which is on a mission to search for Earth-lik

Wanna Play? Computer Gamers Help Push Frontier Of Brain Research

Joe Palca — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:39:00 +0000

People can get pretty addicted to computer games. By some estimates, residents of planet Earth spend 3 billion hours per week playing them. Now some scientists are hoping to make use of all that human capital and harness it for a good cause.

Right now I'm at the novice level of a game called EyeWire, trying to color in a nerve cell in a cartoon drawing of a slice of tissue.

Cheesecake Factory, IBM Team Up To Crack The Code Of Customer Bliss

Joe Palca — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:58:00 +0000

Consider the following entirely fictitious but totally plausible scenario:

A diner at the Kuwait City branch of The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain complains to his waiter that the pickles in his Americana Cheeseburger (American and cheddar cheese, crunchy potato crisps, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, pickles and secret sauce) had a funny texture.

Scientists Pass The Hat For Research Funding

Joe Palca — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:40:00 +0000

When the X-ray was invented, people clamored to get one. Not for any medical reason, but just to see what was typically hidden inside their bodies.

Something like that seems to be happening with DNA sequencing technology. First it was companies offering to sequence people's genomes. Now it's learning all about your microbiome, the collection of microorganisms living on and in your body.

People's fascination with their inner workings may provide a new way for scientists to raise money for basic research.

Small Meals, Big Payoff: Keeping Hunger And Calories In Check

Joe Palca — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:04:00 +0000

When presented with a tempting buffet of French food, not overeating can be a challenge. But a new study by researchers in Lyon suggests there are strategies that will help people resist temptation.

People trying to keep off excess weight are frequently told that it's better to eat small amounts of food frequently during the day, rather than the typical breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Drug Fulfills Promise Of Research Into Cystic Fibrosis Gene

Joe Palca — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:04:00 +0000

The promise of genetic medicine is beginning to be fulfilled, but it's been a long, hard slog.

Take the story of Kalydeco. It's designed to treat people with a lung disease called cystic fibrosis. While not quite a cure, the drug is extremely effective for some CF patients.

But the success of Kalydeco has been more than two decades in the making.

A good starting point for the story is Aug. 24, 1989. That's the day scientists from the U.S. and Canada announced the discovery of the gene associated with the disease.

The Quest For The Perfect Toothbrush

Joe Palca — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 08:26:00 +0000

There are some consumer products where every year brings new innovations. Computers get faster, cellphones get lighter, cars get new bells and whistles.

It's easy to imagine why inventors are drawn to redesigning these products — the technology for making them is changing all the time.

But what about consumer products that have been around for a long time? For the toothbrush, the answer is a resounding yes.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website, as of Christmas Day there were 138 patents with the word toothbrush in the title issued this year.

Computers May Someday Beat Chefs At Creating Flavors We Crave

Joe Palca — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 21:20:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNz23XXLa1E

Building A Rover Of The Edible Kind

Joe Palca — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:59:00 +0000

The folks at the California Institute of Technology have built another Mars rover, but this one will never get to leave Earth. Not surprising, really, since it's made of gingerbread.

I first learned about the new rover from my colleague Nina Gregory at NPR West, who spotted it in LA Weekly's restaurant blog.

NASA Scientists 'Very Careful' With New Mars Data

Joe Palca — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:03:00 +0000

NASA is finally receiving data on Martian soil samples from Curiosity, its rover currently traversing the red planet. The results from the soil samples hint at something exciting, but rover scientists are making very sure not to raise expectations.

NASA had always planned to present early results from the mission this week at a press conference.

Signs Of Life On Mars? Not Exactly

Joe Palca — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 20:30:00 +0000

The director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said last week that preliminary data showed the possibility that the agency's Mars Science Laboratory – the six-wheeled rover that landed on Mars in August — had found signs of carbon-containing molecules.

According to a JPL news release, however, there will be no major announcements Monday, when scientists take part in a news conference at the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union.

Space Probe Finds Ice In Mercury's Craters

Joe Palca — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:05:00 +0000

Mercury is not the first planet to come to mind if you were searching for ice in the solar system. After all, the surface temperature across most of the planet is hot enough to melt lead.

But at the poles on Mercury it's a different story. Almost no sun reaches the poles, and as a result, temperatures can drop to less than -100 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, three papers in the journal Science suggest there really is ice at the bottom of craters near the poles on Mercury.

The evidence comes from an instrument on NASA's Messenger spacecraft called Mercury Laser Altimeter.

Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now

Joe Palca — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:28:00 +0000

Scientists working on NASA's six-wheeled rover on Mars have a problem. But it's a good problem.

They have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.

It's a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their nature, scientists like to share their results.

Levee Rebuilding Questioned After Sandy Breach

Joe Palca — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 10:06:00 +0000

Every time a storm brings flooding to a large metropolitan area, there are calls to improve the levee systems that are designed to prevent flooding.

But there's a major problem with doing that. "We don't know where all of our levees are," says Samantha Medlock with the Association of State Floodplain Managers.

She says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers knows about 14,000 miles of levees in this country, because the corps is supposed to be in charge of their upkeep.

In Flooded New Jersey, No Oversight For Levees

Joe Palca — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Residents of Moonachie and Little Ferry, N.J., are beginning to clear the damage after their communities were inundated by floodwaters. The flooding occurred when a system of levees and berms was unable to control the storm surge pushed ashore by Superstorm Sandy.

Geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis, isn't surprised.

Spray Lights Up The Chemical That Causes Poison Ivy Rash

Joe Palca — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 07:29:00 +0000

You'd think that someone who is a science correspondent and is as allergic to poison ivy as I am would have heard of urushiol, but no. I didn't recognize the word when I saw it a week or so ago.

100 Years Ago, Maillard Taught Us Why Our Food Tastes Better Cooked

Joe Palca — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:58:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhLZ2_KTqf4

Fun With Physics: How To Make Tiny Medicine Nanoballs

Joe Palca — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:17:00 +0000

For the past decade, scientists have been toying with the notion of encapsulating medicine in microscopic balls.

These so-called nanospheres could travel inside the body to hard-to-reach places, like the brain or the inside of a tumor. One problem researchers face is how to build these nanospheres, because you'd have to make them out of even smaller nanoparticles.

"With micro- or nanoparticles, you cannot just touch them with a finger and put them together and stick them together.

Korean Eunuchs Lived Long And Prospered

Joe Palca — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:12:00 +0000

Tell people you're doing a story about the life spans of Korean eunuchs, the typical reaction is a giggle or a cringe.

But if you can overcome your visceral response to the topic, a study scientists in Korea did is quite interesting, both for what they found, and the way they found it.

Several scientists have shown that there is a link between longevity and reproduction: the greater the fertility, the shorter the life span.

Could Genes For Stripes Help Kitty Fight Disease?

Joe Palca — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:07:00 +0000

At this point it's just an interesting hypothesis, but it's possible that understanding cat coloration could help scientists understand resistance to infectious diseases.

Here's the connection.

Vaccine For Dengue Fever Shows A Glimmer Of Hope

Joe Palca — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:33:00 +0000

It's human nature to hope for positive results after spending months or even years conducting a research study. In well-designed studies, however, scientists identify in advance the criteria for success, so their optimism won't color their conclusions when the study is completed.

It's fair to say that a study of an experimental vaccine for dengue fever just published in The Lancet was designed well.

Who's Your Daddy?: Male Snail Carries Eggs As Cargo

Joe Palca — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:52:00 +0000

A man is not a mollusk, and many men probably think that's a good thing. And it's not just because a mollusk is a squishy invertebrate with a shell. It's also because for at least one species of mollusk, the males do all the heavy lifting when it comes to childcare.

The species of mollusk we're talking about is Solenosteira macrospira, a marine snail about 2 inches long. These snails live off the coast of Baja California, and during the mating season, the beach is awash with male and female snails in connubial bliss.

But after the deed is done, something very strange happens.

Pinky DNA Points To Clues About Ancient Humans

Joe Palca — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:51:00 +0000

Scientists in Germany have been able to get enough DNA from a fossilized pinky to produce a high-quality DNA sequence of the pinky's owner.

"It's a really amazing-quality genome," says David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston. "It's as good as modern human genome sequences, from a lot of ways of measuring it."

The pinky belonged to a girl who lived tens of thousands of years ago. Scientists aren't sure about the exact age. She is a member of an extinct group of humans called Denisovans.

Telescope Innovator Shines His Genius On New Fields

Joe Palca — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:23:00 +0000

You may not be familiar with the name Roger Angel, but if there were ever a scientist with a creative streak a mile wide, it would be he.

Angel is an astronomer. He's famous for developing an entirely new way of making really large, incredibly precise telescope mirrors. But his creativity doesn't stop there.

Summer Science: What's A Meteor Shower?

Joe Palca — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 07:31:00 +0000

NPR science correspondent Joe Palca is on a mission this summer to answer the deep, burning questions of summertime.

So You Landed On Mars. Now What?

Joe Palca — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 07:00:00 +0000

The Mars rover Curiosity is beginning its fifth day on the red planet, and it's been performing flawlessly from the moment it landed.

That's been especially gratifying for NASA landing engineer Adam Steltzner.

After A Historic Landing, A Postcard From The Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Joe Palca — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:58:00 +0000

The newsroom at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is beginning to thin out as the Mars Science Laboratory transitions from an exciting news story, to a long duration — possibly very long duration — exploration of the geologic and environmental history of Mars.

For the reporters still in the newsroom, fatigue is beginning to set in. BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos has been at it nonstop for 30 hours.