Jon Hamilton
Jon Hamilton is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. Currently he focuses on neuroscience and health risks.
In 2014, Hamilton went to Liberia as part of the NPR team that covered Ebola. The team received a Peabody Award for its coverage.
Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hamilton was part of NPR's team of science reporters and editors who went to Japan to cover the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Hamilton contributed several pieces to the Science Desk series "The Human Edge," which looked at what makes people the most versatile and powerful species on Earth. His reporting explained how humans use stories, how the highly evolved human brain is made from primitive parts, and what autism reveals about humans' social brains.
In 2009, Hamilton received the Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award for his piece on the neuroscience behind treating autism.
Before joining NPR in 1998, Hamilton was a media fellow with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation studying health policy issues. He reported on states that have improved their Medicaid programs for the poor by enrolling beneficiaries in private HMOs.
From 1995-1997, Hamilton wrote on health and medical topics as a freelance writer, after having been a medical reporter for both The Commercial Appeal and Physician's Weekly.
Hamilton graduated with honors from Oberlin College in Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in English. As a student, he was the editor of the Oberlin Review student newspaper. He earned his master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, where he graduated with honors. During his time at Columbia, Hamilton was awarded the Baker Prize for magazine writing and earned a Sherwood traveling fellowship.
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J. Paul Taylor has found that some brain diseases, like Alzheimer's and ALS, are linked to a basic process inside brain cells. Scientists hope drugs that tweak the process can treat illnesses.
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A coronavirus vaccine could become ineffective if the virus were to undergo certain genetic changes. But so far, so good: Scientists see no evidence that's happening.
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Researchers around the world are tracking the mutations in the coronavirus as it reproduces and spreads to ensure changes in the virus do not affect the development of the vaccine.
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After a decade of failure in treating Alzheimer's with drugs, the National Institutes of Health is funding a five-year effort in Seattle to learn more about how the disease starts in the brain.
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A neurologist who wanted to know how the brain changes in response to a physical disability put his arm in a pink cast for two weeks to find out.
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NPR's Ari Shapiro and Michel Martin are joined by NPR's science correspondent Jon Hamilton to talk about the information about the coronavirus learned since the beginning of the pandemic.
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Scientists have found evidence that the coronavirus is less deadly than it first appeared — for Americans infected with the coronavirus, the chance of dying appears to be less than 1 in 100.
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Early studies have found high mortality rates among COVID-19 patients on ventilators. But the new data from some major medical centers shows that many of those patients are much likely to survive.
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An NPR science correspondent takes listener questions about the specific impacts of the coronavirus — and the race to stop it.
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Dr. Wayne Riley, president of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, and an NPR science correspondent answer more questions about the racial disparity in how the coronavirus is impacting patients.