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Nell Greenfieldboyce

Credit Doby Photography / NPR

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.

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Shots - Health News
2:39 am
Wed January 23, 2013

Rules Would Retire Most Research Chimps

Credit Save the Chimps
Two chimps groom each other at the Save the Chimps facility in Florida. The National Institutes of Health owns about 360 chimpanzees that aren't yet retired and that are living at research facilities; new guidelines say most of its chimps should be retired.
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Originally published on Wed January 23, 2013 2:56 pm

The National Institutes of Health should retire most of its chimps that are currently living in research facilities, according to a working group put together by the NIH to look at the future need for biomedical research on chimps.

The group did recommend keeping a small number of chimps in reserve in case they are needed for studies later on. But it also laid out a detailed description of the kind of living conditions that would be needed for those chimps, and said any proposed research should go through a review committee that includes members of the public.

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Animals
2:36 am
Fri January 18, 2013

Figuring How to Pay For (Chimp) Retirement

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Credit Save the Chimps
Hannah and Marty eat watermelon snacks at the Save the Chimps sanctuary.
Credit Jo-Anne Macarthur / Save the Chimps
Jude and JB play at Save the Chimps. The facility is home to 266 chimps.
Credit Save the Chimps
Caring for the animals at Save the Chimps costs about $15,000 per chimp per year.
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Originally published on Fri January 18, 2013 9:06 pm

Retirees flock to Florida — and the Sunshine State even has a retirement home for chimpanzees.

There, chimps live in small groups on a dozen man-made islands. Each 3-acre grassy island has palm trees and climbing structures, and is surrounded by a moat.

This is Save the Chimps, the world's biggest sanctuary for chimps formerly used in research experiments or the entertainment industry, or as pets. The chimps living here — 266 of them — range in age from 6 years old to over 50. And as sanctuary Director Jen Feuerstein drives around in a golf cart, she recognizes each one.

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Science
5:08 pm
Thu January 3, 2013

You Can't See It, But You'll Be A Different Person In 10 Years

Credit iStockphoto.com
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Originally published on Mon January 7, 2013 10:06 am

No matter how old people are, they seem to believe that who they are today is essentially who they'll be tomorrow.

That's according to fresh research that suggests that people generally fail to appreciate how much their personality and values will change in the years ahead — even though they recognize that they have changed in the past.

Daniel Gilbert, a psychology researcher at Harvard University who did this study with two colleagues, says that he's no exception to this rule.

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Space
4:26 pm
Fri December 14, 2012

50 Years After First Interplanetary Probe, NASA Looks To Future

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Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
The Mariner 2 probe at an assembly facility in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Aug. 29, 1962.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
Radio signals from the Mariner spacecraft were received on three 85-foot antennas like this one, which were built in California's Mojave desert, near Johannesburg in South Africa, and near Woomera in southern Australia.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
In the California receiver control room, personnel await confirmation that Mariner has begun to scan the planet Venus.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
Data from the receivers were teletyped in a coded format to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
There, the data was routed to the digital computer at JPL.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
Printouts of the data were made available to the experimenters.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
At the operations center at JPL, the spacecraft's status was posted on the wall.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
A model of JPL's Mariner 2 spacecraft above a floral "Venus" moved down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, Calif., in the 1963 Tournament of Roses Parade on Jan. 1.
Credit NASA/JPL
Scientists show off reams of data collected by Mariner 2 as it passed by Venus. The probe flew by the planet on Dec. 14, 1962, and scanned the surface for 42 minutes.
Credit NASA/JPL/Caltech
A technician wears a hood and protective goggles while working with a full-scale model of the Mariner spacecraft in a space simulator chamber at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in 1962.
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Originally published on Mon December 17, 2012 9:27 am

Fifty years ago, on Dec. 14, 1962, reporters gathered for a press briefing at NASA headquarters and heard an unearthly sound: radio signals being beamed back by a spacecraft flying within 22,000 miles of Venus.

The Mariner 2 mission to Venus was the first time any spacecraft had ever gone to another planet.

These days, vivid photographs showing scenes from all around the solar system are so ubiquitous that people might easily forget how mysterious our planetary neighbors used to be.

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Science
6:25 pm
Fri November 23, 2012

Experiments That Keep Going And Going And Going

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Credit Michigan State University
William Beal, standing at center, started a long-term study on seed germination in 1879. He buried 20 bottles with seeds in them for later researchers to unearth and plant.
Credit G.L. Kohuth / Michigan State University
Richard Lenski examines the growth of bacteria on a plate on Jan. 12. He began an evolution experiment in 1988 with 12 identical flasks of bacteria to see if the populations would change over time in the same way.
Credit Kurt Stepnitz / Michigan State University
Bottles like this 90-year-old one were filled with seeds and sand, then buried by William Beal. Researchers periodically unearth a bottle and plant the seeds to see if they grow.
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Originally published on Fri November 23, 2012 9:00 pm

A biologist who has been watching a dozen bottles of bacteria evolve for nearly a quarter of a century is hoping he can find someone to keep his lab experiment going long after he dies.

Meanwhile, just by coincidence, a botanist who works across campus is carefully tending an experiment that started before he was born, all the way back in 1879.

These two researchers, both at Michigan State University in East Lansing, represent different sides of an unusual phenomenon in science: experiments that outlive the people who started them.

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