Past Articles by Joe Palca
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Atop A Hawaiian Mountain, A Constant Sniff For Carbon Dioxide Since 1958, researchers have been measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory. The remote outpost has just reported a carbon dioxide level of 400 parts per million — the highest it has climbed in the modern age. |
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Wake Up And Smell The Tuna? Sunrise At Honolulu's Fish Auction Actually, fresh fish doesn't smell "fishy," says Joe Palca. He spent a recent morning watching Hawaii's fishermen sell some 50,000 pounds of catch on the auction floor and sends this postcard. |
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Wake Up And Smell The Tuna? Sunrise At Honolulu's Fish Auction Actually, fresh fish doesn't smell "fishy," says Joe Palca. He spent a recent morning watching Hawaii's fishermen sell some 50,000 pounds of catch on the auction floor and sends this postcard. |
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Envisioning The Future With Inventor Cori Lathan This enterprising technologist is designing for a future where computers are intuitive and anticipate our every need. We're not there yet, but she has started a company that aims to imagine, build and test tomorrow's gadgets today. |
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Envisioning The Future With Inventor Cori Lathan This enterprising technologist is designing for a future where computers are intuitive and anticipate our every need. We're not there yet, but she has started a company that aims to imagine, build and test tomorrow's gadgets today. |
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Envisioning The Future With Inventor Cori Lathan This enterprising technologist is designing for a future where computers are intuitive and anticipate our every need. We're not there yet, but she has started a company that aims to imagine, build and test tomorrow's gadgets today. |
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Kepler Telescope Spots 3 New Planets In The 'Goldilocks Zone' The planets orbiting far-off stars are close to Earth-sized and are a distance from their suns that makes their surfaces neither too hot nor too cold. Since launching in 2009, the Kepler telescope has identified more than 100 planets. |
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Kepler Telescope Spots 3 New Planets In The 'Goldilocks Zone' The planets orbiting far-off stars are close to Earth-sized and are a distance from their suns that makes their surfaces neither too hot nor too cold. Since launching in 2009, the Kepler telescope has identified more than 100 planets. |
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Why A Hoosier State Scientist Is Stuck On Oysters How do oysters attach themselves to rocks? They need a glue, but a glue that can set in a watery environment. In this installment of "Joe's Big Idea," NPR's Joe Palca reports that glue could lead to medical advances. |
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Wanna Play? Computer Gamers Help Push Frontier Of Brain Research Computer games aren't just for fun anymore — they're also valuable research tools. Scientists are taking complex problems — like trying to figure out how proteins fold and how neural networks work — and turning them into engaging games. And they need your help. |
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Wanna Play? Computer Gamers Help Push Frontier Of Brain Research Computer games aren't just for fun anymore — they're also valuable research tools. Scientists are taking complex problems — like trying to figure out how proteins fold and how neural networks work — and turning them into engaging games. And they need your help. |
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Cheesecake Factory, IBM Team Up To Crack The Code Of Customer Bliss The restaurant chain hopes a new system for analyzing big data sets will help it spot patterns of complaints across its more than 170 outlets in a matter of hours, not weeks. The goal: to spot problems small and big (soggy pickles? foodborne illness?) before they balloon. |
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Cheesecake Factory, IBM Team Up To Crack The Code Of Customer Bliss The restaurant chain hopes a new system for analyzing big data sets will help it spot patterns of complaints across its more than 170 outlets in a matter of hours, not weeks. The goal: to spot problems small and big (soggy pickles? foodborne illness?) before they balloon. |
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Scientists Look To The Internet To Raise Research Funds Scientists are learning what artists have already figured out: there's money out there. Specifically, there's money among the users of the Internet, and they are willing to donate it for what they consider to be good causes. |
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Scientists Pass The Hat For Research Funding Crowd funding has proved popular for bands raising money to produce a new album and for producers of documentary films. Now scientists are getting into the act, and some are raising money from the very people they're studying. |
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Scientists Pass The Hat For Research Funding Crowd funding has proved popular for bands raising money to produce a new album and for producers of documentary films. Now scientists are getting into the act, and some are raising money from the very people they're studying. |
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Scientists Pass The Hat For Research Funding Crowd funding has proved popular for bands raising money to produce a new album and for producers of documentary films. Now scientists are getting into the act, and some are raising money from the very people they're studying. |
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Scientist Gets Research Donations From Crowd Funding What do you do when you're a scientist and you have no job and no money for your research? If you're Ethan Perlstein, you try crowd funding. He raised $25,000 to investigate where the drug methamphetamine is stored in the brain. |
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Small Meals, Big Payoff: Keeping Hunger And Calories In Check While many of us have long suspected that eating frequent, small and tasty meals prevents overindulging, a new study of French men indicates that it just might be true. So cut that breakfast croissant into fourths and eat it slowly. |
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Small Meals, Big Payoff: Keeping Hunger And Calories In Check While many of us have long suspected that eating frequent, small and tasty meals prevents overindulging, a new study of French men indicates that it just might be true. So cut that breakfast croissant into fourths and eat it slowly. |
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Small Meals, Big Payoff: Keeping Hunger And Calories In Check While many of us have long suspected that eating frequent, small and tasty meals prevents overindulging, a new study of French men indicates that it just might be true. So cut that breakfast croissant into fourths and eat it slowly. |
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Drug Fulfills Promise Of Research Into Cystic Fibrosis Gene The success of Kalydeco, a drug to treat cystic fibrosis, has been decades in the making — since the discovery of the gene associated with the disease. The time from gene discovery to successful drug may be shortening, but there are only a handful of drugs like Kalydeco on the market. |
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Drug Fulfills Promise Of Research Into Cystic Fibrosis Gene The success of Kalydeco, a drug to treat cystic fibrosis, has been decades in the making — since the discovery of the gene associated with the disease. The time from gene discovery to successful drug may be shortening, but there are only a handful of drugs like Kalydeco on the market. |
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Hillary Clinton Expected To Make A Full Recovery Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have provided more details about her condition. Clinton was admitted to New York Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday. The doctors say a brain scan revealed a blood clot that was situated in the space between the brain and skull behind her right ear. According to her doctors, the condition is not life threatening. |
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The Quest For The Perfect Toothbrush There were 138 toothbrush-related patents filed this year in the U.S. Why so many new ideas? "Cleaning the teeth is actually a pretty complex problem, and I think that's why there's been so much invention around it," says the head of Colgate's global toothbrush division. |
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The Quest For The Perfect Toothbrush There were 138 toothbrush-related patents filed this year in the U.S. Why so many new ideas? "Cleaning the teeth is actually a pretty complex problem, and I think that's why there's been so much invention around it," says the head of Colgate's global toothbrush division. |
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Computers May Someday Beat Chefs At Creating Flavors We Crave   An IBM computer that analyzes flavor molecules and develops recipes is on the way in five years, scientists say. They are hoping to find not only novel and tasty flavor combinations, but ones that will appeal to us without adding to our waistlines. |
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Computers May Someday Beat Chefs At Creating Flavors We Crave An IBM computer that analyzes flavor molecules and develops recipes is on the way in five years, scientists say. They are hoping to find not only novel and tasty flavor combinations, but ones that will appeal to us without adding to our waistlines. |
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Computers May Someday Beat Chefs At Creating Flavors We Crave An IBM computer that analyzes flavor molecules and develops recipes is on the way in five years, scientists say. They are hoping to find not only novel and tasty flavor combinations, but ones that will appeal to us without adding to our waistlines. |
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Computers May Someday Beat Chefs At Creating Flavors We Crave An IBM computer that analyzes flavor molecules and develops recipes is on the way in five years, scientists say. They are hoping to find not only novel and tasty flavor combinations, but ones that will appeal to us without adding to our waistlines. |
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Building A Rover Of The Edible Kind If you've ever wanted to eat a replica of the Mars rover Curiosity that made history this summer, here's your chance. A Caltech chef made one out of gingerbread, and it's on display in the lobby of the Athenaeum, a faculty and staff club on the Caltech campus. |
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Building A Rover Of The Edible Kind If you've ever wanted to eat a replica of the Mars rover Curiosity that made history this summer, here's your chance. A Caltech chef made one out of gingerbread, and it's on display in the lobby of the Athenaeum, a faculty and staff club on the Caltech campus. |
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NASA Scientists 'Very Careful' With New Mars Data NASA believes its Curiosity rover might have found carbon and chlorine molecules on the red planet. But before anyone says "life on Mars," NASA needs more testing to confirm the rover's results. |
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NASA Scientists 'Very Careful' With New Mars Data NASA believes its Curiosity rover might have found carbon and chlorine molecules on the red planet. But before anyone says "life on Mars," NASA needs more testing to confirm the rover's results. |
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Signs Of Life On Mars? Not Exactly There's a possibility the Mars rover has found signs of carbon-containing molecules on the red planet. That discovery is exciting because of what it might say about the Martian environment where the rover is sitting at the bottom of Gale crater. |
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Signs Of Life On Mars? Not Exactly There's a possibility the Mars rover has found signs of carbon-containing molecules on the red planet. That discovery is exciting because of what it might say about the Martian environment where the rover is sitting at the bottom of Gale crater. |
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Space Probe Finds Ice In Mercury's Craters On the poles of our solar system's innermost planet, where temperatures can drop to -100 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers have identified water ice and organic "goo," most likely deposited there by comets that crashed into the planet. |
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Space Probe Finds Ice In Mercury's Craters On the poles of our solar system's innermost planet, where temperatures can drop to -100 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers have identified water ice and organic "goo," most likely deposited there by comets that crashed into the planet. |
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Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now Data from a soil sample on Mars have NASA scientists buzzing with excitement over a finding that could be "one for the history books." But they're not spilling the beans about their discovery just yet. |
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Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now Data from a soil sample on Mars have NASA scientists buzzing with excitement over a finding that could be "one for the history books." But they're not spilling the beans about their discovery just yet. |
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Levee Rebuilding Questioned After Sandy Breach Experts are taking a close look at the country's levees after the failure of one caused massive flooding in New Jersey during Superstorm Sandy. Some argue that rebuilding levees may only set the stage for the next flooding disaster. |
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In Flooded New Jersey, No Oversight For Levees There's no state agency that regulates or maintains levees in the Garden State. But the flooding brought by Sandy will inevitably bring calls for more flood-protection systems. |
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Spray Lights Up The Chemical That Causes Poison Ivy Rash Researchers have developed a clever new method to detect the chemical that causes the annoying itch. But urushiol isn't all bad. It's also behind the shine of beautiful Japanese lacquerware. |
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100 Years Ago, Maillard Taught Us Why Our Food Tastes Better Cooked  The French know how to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of how cooking changes the taste, texture and color of food. Hundreds of scientists gathered recently near the village where Louis-Camille Maillard was born to honor him. |
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Fun With Physics: How To Make Tiny Medicine Nanoballs Scientists have long toyed with the idea of putting medicine inside microscopic capsules that could travel to hard-to-reach places inside your body. Now, researchers have come up with a method to assemble tiny nanospheres. |
