Award-winning journalist Richard Harris reports on science issues for NPR's newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.

Harris, who joined NPR in 1986, has traveled to the ends of the earth for NPR. His reports have originated from Timbuktu, the South Pole, the Galapagos Islands, Beijing during the SARS epidemic, the center of Greenland, the Amazon rain forest and the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro (for a story about tuberculosis).

In 2010, Harris' reporting uncovered that the blown-out BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was spewing out far more oil than asserted in the official estimates. He covered the United Nations climate negotiations, starting with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, followed by Kyoto in 1997 and Copenhagen in 2009. Harris was a major contributor to NPR's award-winning 2007-2008 "Climate Connections" series.

Over the course of his career, Harris has been the recipient of many of the journalism and science industries' most prestigious awards. The University of California at Santa Cruz awarded Harris the 2010-11 Alumni Achievement Award – the school's highest honor. In 2002, Harris was elected an honorary member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. Harris shared a 1995 Peabody Award for investigative reporting on NPR about the tobacco industry.

As part of the team that collaborated on NPR's 1989 series "AIDS in Black America," Harris was awarded a Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, a first place award from the National Association of Black Journalists and an Ohio State Award. In 1988, Harris won the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award for his report, "Anti-Noise: Can Technology Turn Noise into Quiet?" which explored a revolutionary technology that uses computer-generated noise to cancel out, not just mask, unwanted noise.

Before joining NPR, Harris was a science writer for the San Francisco Examiner. From 1981 to 1983, Harris was a staff writer at The Tri-Valley Herald in Livermore, California, covering science, technology, and health issues. Under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Harris spent the summer of 1980 as a Mass Media Science Fellow reporting on science issues for The Washington Star, in Washington, D.C.

Harris is co-founder of the Washington, D.C., Area Science Writers Association, as well as past president of the National Association of Science Writers.

A California native, Harris was valedictorian of his college graduating class at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1980. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology, with highest honors.

The Two-Way
5:40 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

Full Cache Of Unredacted WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables Is Now Online

Credit Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves a courtroom in southeast London.

Today WikiLeaks admitted that a cache of diplomatic cables was now available all over the Internet. The cables include information that could potentially put people, like government informants, in jeopardy.

The Wall Street Journal reports that facing criticism for releasing unredacted material, WikiLeaks tried to shift the blame to The Guardian, saying the British paper had published the password that opened the encrypted file:

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Science
5:23 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

For Protesters, Keystone Pipeline Is Line in Tar Sand

Dozens of environmental activists showed up in front of the White House Thursday to get arrested in a peaceful protest against a proposed oil pipeline that would cut across the American Midwest.

Organizers said that over the past 10 days, about 800 people have been handcuffed and bused off to a police station in this ongoing action.

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Credit Doby Photography / NPR

Corey Dade is a national correspondent for the NPR Digital News team. With more than 15 years of journalism experience, he writes news analysis about federal policy, national politics, social trends, cultural issues and other topics for NPR.org.

Prior to NPR, Dade served as the Atlanta-based southern politics and economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal for five years. During that time he covered many of the nation's biggest news stories, including the BP oil spill, the Tiger Woods scandal and the 2008 presidential election, having traveled with the Obama and McCain campaigns. He also covered the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and Hurricane Katrina, which led to a nine-month special assignment in New Orleans.

At the Journal, Dade also told the stories at the intersection of politics, culture and commerce, such as the Obama presidency's potential to reframe race in America and the battle between African-American and Dominican hair salons for control of the billion-dollar black consumer market.

Dade began his reporting career at The Miami Herald, writing about curbside newspaper racks and other controversies roiling the retirement town of Hallandale, Fla., pop. 30,000. He later covered local and state politics at the Detroit Free Press, The Boston Globe and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

No stranger to radio, over the years Dade has been a frequent guest commentator and analyst on NPR news, talk and information programs and on several cable TV networks.

As a student at Grambling State University in Louisiana, Dade played football for legendary coach Eddie Robinson. He then transferred to his eventual alma mater, the University of Maryland.

It's All Politics
4:46 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

What Should Be In Obama's Jobs Plan? Six Ideas That Could Make The List

When President Obama unveils his jobs plan to Congress next week, he'll have to balance his desire for spending on programs that might stimulate the economy against the nation's current appetite for cost cutting. We examine the pros, cons and politics of six proposals that might make Obama's list:

Extension of the payroll tax "holiday"

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Jon Huntsman
4:20 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

Can Jon Huntsman Break Away From The Pack?

As Jon Huntsman and his wife walked down Main Street in Concord, N.H., on Thursday, trailed by news cameras, a passerby asked, "Who's that?"

The question is not surprising for a candidate who's run no TV ads in New Hampshire so far, and who's polling at just 3 percent in the state. But Huntsman was undaunted Thursday morning as he addressed a "Politics and Eggs" breakfast at St. Anselm College.

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Science
4:19 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

Human Brain Responds To Animals, Cute Or Creepy

Credit iStockphoto.com
The brain "seems to be specialized in alerting us to things that are emotionally important to us — either positive or because they're scary," a scientist says.

Animals have a special place in the human heart. Now, researchers are reporting that creatures great and small also have a special place in our heads.

A team led by researchers at Caltech has found individual brain cells that respond when a person sees an animal, but not when that person sees another person, a place, or an object.

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The Two-Way
3:57 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

U.N. Panel Finds Israel's Naval Blockade Legal, But Flotilla Raid 'Excessive'

A United Nations panel has found that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza is legal. But the panel also stated that a May 2010 armed raid on a flotilla, which was carrying activists trying to break the blockade, was "excessive and unreasonable." Eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent died in the raid.

The New York Times obtained an early copy of the report, which is expected to be released tomorrow.

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Shots - Health Blog
3:30 pm
Thu September 1, 2011

What We Eat Shapes Microbe Societies Inside Us

Credit National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Bacteroides are microbes that dominate the guts of people who eat more animal protein and fat.

Deep inside your intestines, there's a complex microbial ecosystem, which scientists say contains nearly a thousand species of bacteria.

A lot of recent research has shown that the community of gut microbes acts almost like another organ in your body — they're that crucial. They exert a pronounced effect on the nutrients and energy that get pulled out of food. And the bacteria are thought to play a big role in a slew of health conditions, including obesity and diabetes.

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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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