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

Tuesday

India's lunar mission reaches a successful conclusion

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Wednesday

The drone uses a mix of artificial intelligence and more conventional programming to fly through a race course. Leonard Bauersfeld hide caption

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Leonard Bauersfeld

An AI quadcopter has beaten human champions at drone racing

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Monday

Japan began releasing wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on August 24, as tanks containing the radioactive water neared capacity. STR/JIJI Press/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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STR/JIJI Press/AFP via Getty Images

Thursday

Storage tanks for contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are near capacity. Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images

5 things to know about Japan's Fukushima water release in the Pacific

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Tuesday

India is set to land a robotic probe on the moon tomorrow

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Monday

Scientists are skeptical of mysterious supposedly superconductive material

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Russia's latest attempt at Moon landing fails. India will try again this week

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Saturday

Russia and India are landing close to the moon's south pole. Researchers believe water ice hidden in craters could one day supply lunar colonies with vital resources. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption

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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Russia and India are landing on the moon next week. Here's what you need to know

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Thursday

Mosquitoes spread malaria. Now researchers hope that a gene drive technology could turn them into malaria fighters. Although not every scientist thinks it's a good idea to genetically modify a wild animal. James Gathany/AP hide caption

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James Gathany/AP

Mosquitoes spread malaria. These researchers want them to fight it instead

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Saturday

Researchers discover stardust sprinkled on a nearby asteroid

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Friday

A small sample of asteroid collected by Japan's Hayabusa-2 probe streaks back to Earth in 2020. Researchers now say the sample contains tiny grains of dust from other stars. MORGAN SETTE/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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MORGAN SETTE/AFP via Getty Images

Researchers discover stardust sprinkled on a nearby asteroid

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Franz Anthony

Sea squirts and 'skeeters in our science news roundup

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Thursday

A week in science: A copper-age "queen," a sea squirt and malaria-fighting mosquitoes

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Monday

The bridge of the NS Savannah, equipped with weather and communication instruments, would send orders to the reactor control room. Meredith Rizzo for NPR hide caption

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Meredith Rizzo for NPR

The U.S. once built a nuclear ship ... for passengers

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Friday

The U.S. once had more than 30,000 tons of chemical weapons, but it has finally eliminated the last of its stockpile. David Zalubowski/AP hide caption

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David Zalubowski/AP

The world is officially 'free' of chemical weapons. Here's what that means

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Wednesday

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of planning to attack Zaporizhzhia power plant

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Friday

This artist's concept shows stars, black holes, and nebula laid over a grid representing the fabric of space-time. Ripples in this fabric are called gravitational waves. Astronomers have found evidence of gravitational waves created by black holes billions of times the mass of the Sun. NANOGrav collaboration; Aurore Simonet hide caption

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NANOGrav collaboration; Aurore Simonet

Astronomers have some big gravitational wave news

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Thursday

This week in science: gravitational waves, nature-inspired robots and Orca attacks

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Friday

The interior of the Savannah remains a time capsule of the mid-century era in which it operated. The main lobby of the cruise ship welcomed paying passengers from 1962 to 1965. Meredith Rizzo for NPR hide caption

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Meredith Rizzo for NPR

Step inside the world's only nuclear-powered passenger ship — built in 1959

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Wednesday

This timed exposer shows the trail as the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from pad 39A for the Crew-6 mission at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, early on March 2, 2023. Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images

Are American companies thinking about innovation the right way?

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Civil rights advocates say laws need to catch up with AI technology

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Tuesday

How AI is revolutionizing how governments conduct surveillance

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Saturday

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, is seen in the background of the shallow Kakhovka Reservoir. Water levels in the reservoir have been falling rapidly after a critical dam collapsed. Kateryna Klochko/AP hide caption

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Kateryna Klochko/AP

A Ukrainian nuclear plant is facing a water shortage

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Friday

Zaporizhzia Nuclear Plant needs more water than reservoir can give after dam breach

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