David Kestenbaum
David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.
In his years at NPR, David has covered science's discoveries and its darker side, including the Northeast blackout, the anthrax attacks and the collapse of the New Orleans levees. He has also reported on energy issues, particularly nuclear and climate change.
David has won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
David worked briefly on the show This American Life, and set up a radio journalism program in Cambodia on a Fulbright fellowship. He also teaches a journalism class at Johns Hopkins University.
David holds a bachelor's of science degree in physics from Yale University and a doctorate in physics from Harvard University.
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The price of new textbooks has gone through the roof. But what students spend on books has barely budged.
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The 1964 World's Fair showcased jet packs and other miracles of science. Here's how people back then thought the future would look (and how it actually turned out).
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One hungry reporter goes on a quest to find out why his package of Peanut Butter M&M's weighs 0.06 ounces less than a package of Milk Chocolate M&M's.
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How much of what we think of as the beautiful sound of a Stradivarius is the instrument itself — and how much is the brand?
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You can trace 4,000 years of economic growth through the history of light. The ways we got from a candle, made from of animal fat, to the LED lights we have today tell a lot about our modern economy.
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With online health-insurance markets set to open this week, it's still unclear whether healthy people will sign up. Yet the success of the program depends on them.
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Oil sits under a pristine swath of the rainforest. Ecuador promised to leave the forest untouched — if the rest of the world would pay up.
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The tortuous negotiations involved in the "fiscal cliff" talks are like a chess game. To shed some light on the kinds of negotiation techniques that members of Congress might be using, we asked two negotiation experts to walk us through examples from their everyday lives.
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In the early 1990s, Colombian drug cartels had a problem: They had more money than they knew what to do with. So a pair of federal agents created an offshore bank.
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In the early 1990s, Colombian drug cartels had a problem: They had more money than they knew what to do with. So a pair of federal agents created an offshore bank.