Geoff Brumfiel Geoff Brumfiel works as a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's science desk.
Geoff Brumfiel, photographed for NPR, 17 January 2019, in Washington DC.
Stories By

Geoff Brumfiel

Mike Morgan/NPR
Geoff Brumfiel, photographed for NPR, 17 January 2019, in Washington DC.
Mike Morgan/NPR

Geoff Brumfiel

Senior Editor and Correspondent

Geoff Brumfiel works as a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's science desk. His editing duties include science and space, while his reporting focuses on the intersection of science and national security.

From April of 2016 to September of 2018, Brumfiel served as an editor overseeing basic research and climate science. Prior to that, he worked for three years as a reporter covering physics and space for the network. Brumfiel has carried his microphone into ghost villages created by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan. He's tracked the journey of highly enriched uranium as it was shipped out of Poland. For a story on how animals drink, he crouched for over an hour and tried to convince his neighbor's cat to lap a bowl of milk.

Before NPR, Brumfiel was based in London as a senior reporter for Nature Magazine from 2007-2013. There, he covered energy, space, climate, and the physical sciences. From 2002 – 2007, Brumfiel was Nature Magazine's Washington Correspondent.

Brumfiel is the 2013 winner of the Association of British Science Writers award for news reporting on the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Story Archive

Friday

Here's what the latest version of ChatGPT gets right — and wrong

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Saturday

As more robots and people travel to the moon in coming years, some researchers believe it's time to set a lunar time standard. NASA Johnson hide caption

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NASA Johnson

If daylight saving time seems tricky, try figuring out the time on the moon

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Wednesday

The House's attempt to shed new light on COVID-19's origins

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Thursday

A U.S. Air Force pilot looked down at the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovered over the Central Continental United States on Feb. 3. The pair was flying over Bellflower, Mo. Department of Defense hide caption

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Department of Defense

Wednesday

Russia says it will stop participating in its last nuclear treaty with the U.S.

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Tuesday

Russia says it's suspending a major treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons

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A NASA balloon launched over Hawaii in 2014 to test components that might one day be used to land spacecraft on Mars. Balloons are regularly used to test new designs and conduct scientific experiments. Bill Rodman/NASA hide caption

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Bill Rodman/NASA

Researchers watch and worry as balloons are blasted from the sky

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Monday

How the U.S. may have popped the balloon on scientific education and research

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Friday

The Pentagon's multi-billion-dollar program to develop advanced missile warning balloons is just one of many projects over the decades that has been sabotaged by a gusty breeze. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

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Patrick Semansky/AP

Militaries have sought to use spy balloons for centuries. The real enemy is the wind

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Friday

Dropping water levels in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine have exposed fishing nets and roots of aquatic plants along the shoreline of the Dnipro river. Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images hide caption

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Dmytro Smoliyenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Russia is draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir, endangering a nuclear plant

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Wednesday

Smoke billows from Iskenderun Port fire as people walk past collapsed buildings on February 07, 2023 in Iskenderun, Turkey. Burak Kara/Getty Images hide caption

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Burak Kara/Getty Images

Turkey was "overdue" for a big earthquake. Why couldn't we predict it?

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Tuesday

What caused Monday's major earthquake in Turkey? Here's what we know

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A man searches for people in the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaziantep, Turkey, on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. Mustafa Karali/AP hide caption

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Mustafa Karali/AP

Here's what we know about what caused the Turkey earthquake

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Monday

Why the earthquake caused so much damage in Turkey, despite being long overdue

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Friday

What we know about the alleged Chinese government spy balloon

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A high altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., on Wednesday. The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace. Larry Mayer/AP hide caption

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Larry Mayer/AP

Thursday

Computers have been used in rocketry for half-a-century, so it's possible to think that the new AI programs could help. They struggled to grasp the basics. NPR staff generated imagery using Midjourney hide caption

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NPR staff generated imagery using Midjourney

We asked the new AI to do some simple rocket science. It crashed and burned

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Wednesday

LUVLIMAGE/Getty Images

Time is so much weirder than it seems

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Sunday

For space exploration, 2022 was a year full of cosmic milestones

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Friday

Far from the Earth, time gets extremely weird. Black holes can cause it to stretch and even break down entirely. NASA/JPL-Caltech hide caption

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NASA/JPL-Caltech

Researchers say time is an illusion. So why are we all obsessed with it?

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Thursday

Physicists are still trying to understand time

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Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announces a major scientific breakthrough in fusion research that was made at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, during a news conference on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Wednesday

How close are we actually to fusion energy powering society?

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Tuesday