Nell Greenfieldboyce
Nell Greenfieldboyce is a NPR science correspondent.
With reporting focused on general science, NASA, and the intersection between technology and society, Greenfieldboyce has been on the science desk's technology beat since she joined NPR in 2005.
In that time Greenfieldboyce has reported on topics including the narwhals in Greenland, the ending of the space shuttle program, and the reasons why independent truckers don't want electronic tracking in their cabs.
Much of Greenfieldboyce's reporting reflects an interest in discovering how applied science and technology connects with people and culture. She has worked on stories spanning issues such as pet cloning, gene therapy, ballistics, and federal regulation of new technology.
Prior to NPR, Greenfieldboyce spent a decade working in print, mostly magazines including U.S. News & World Report and New Scientist.
A graduate of Johns Hopkins, earning her Bachelor's of Arts degree in social sciences and a Master's of Arts degree in science writing, Greenfieldboyce taught science writing for four years at the university. She was honored for her talents with the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists.
-
When you hear the words bubonic plague, Black Death usually comes to mind. But the first plague pandemic happened 800 years earlier, when the Justinian plague wiped out nearly a quarter of the world's population. Scientists have decoded the bacteria responsible, which have roots in China. -
About 6 million years ago, a new mineral analysis suggests, a mighty river zigzagging across the Colorado plateau may have found its way into older gorges, greatly enlarging them to create the West's most spectacular canyon. Still, some geologists aren't sold. -
Scientists have unveiled an atomic clock that sets new records in timekeeping 鈥� it could run 5 billion years without gaining or losing a second. That sort of precision is not trivial, researchers say. Clocks have ripple effects for all kinds of technology, from cellphones to GPS and more. -
Some archaeologists have long suspected that a faded painting from the ruins of the 9,000-year-old village known as Catalhoyuk might be a map 鈥� of a settlement at the foot of an erupting volcano. Others said no. Now geologists have evidence that the volcano indeed erupted around that time.
-
Long gone, but never forgotten, Voyager 1 is about 12 billion miles from home and now sailing through interstellar space, scientists were thrilled to confirm in 2013. The spacecraft carries with it a generation's dreams. -
States screen newborns for rare genetic disorders, but increasingly those disorders don't have simple cures, if they have any cure at all. Sometimes the diagnosis isn't clear cut, either. That leaves some parents not knowing the fate of their child. -
The Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management admits no liability in the whistle-blower case brought by the scientist. The agency says it agreed to the settlement to avoid litigation costs. -
Day after day, workers at Michigan State University care for and feed colonies of evolving bacteria. The original microbes have produced more than 50,000 generations in the 25 years since the experiment began. Despite predictions the bacteria might someday reach a point where they would evolve no more, the results show they keep changing. -
A study of DNA extracted from wolf and dog fossils suggests that ancient wolf populations in Europe are the direct ancestors of most modern-day domestic dogs. The study suggests wolves became dogs between 18,800 and 32,100 years ago, before the start of agriculture. -
About 22 percent of sun-like stars in our galaxy may have planets orbiting them that are about the size of Earth and bathed in similar amounts of sunlight, according to a new analysis of data from the Kepler Space Telescope.
