
Michaeleen Doucleff
Michaeleen Doucleff is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. She reports for the radio and the Web for NPR's global health and development blog, Goats and Soda. Doucleff focuses on disease outbreaks, drug development, and trends in global health.
In 2014, Doucleff was part of the team that earned a George Foster Peabody award for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. For the series, Doucleff reported on how the epidemic ravaged maternal health and how the virus spreads through the air. In 2015, Doucleff and Senior Producer Jane Greenhalgh reported on the extreme prejudices faced by young women in Nepal when they're menstruating. Their story was the second most popular one on the NPR website in 2015 and contributed to the NPR series on 15-year-old girls around the world, which won two Gracie Awards.
As a science journalist, Doucleff has reported on a broad range of topics, from vaccination fears and the microbiome to beer biophysics and dog psychology.
Before coming to NPR in 2012, Doucleff was an editor at the journal Cell, where she wrote about the science behind pop culture. Doucleff has a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Berkeley, California, and a master's degree in viticulture and enology from the University of California, Davis.
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There is a lot of information packed into the 300-page report on the origins of the pandemic released this week. Here are three key points that haven't received a great deal of media attention.
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In many cultures around the world, parents don't need chore charts or allowances for kids to pitch in around the house. A new study shows how parents in these cultures teach children to be helpful.
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The World Health Organization says it will release its report investigating the origins of COVID-19. It concludes that the virus likely came from a bat and a laboratory leak is extremely unlikely.
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The report states that the coronavirus most likely did not originate at the wet market in Wuhan and that a lab leak was "an extremely unlikely pathway."
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Researchers worry anothercoronavirus will spill over from a bat or some other creature. They're hunting for sources — and finding evidence that a new pandemic could be around the corner.
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All it took was one coronavirus to turn the world upside down. But how many more are out there, lurking in animals? And what's the chance they could jump into people and trigger another outbreak?
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Peter Daszak of the investigative team sent to Wuhan says the farms were probably where the coronavirus first jumped from bats to another animal before infecting humans.
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In some cultures, kids roll their eyes when asked to do chores. In others, they'll pitch in without even being asked. Researchers have identified two key practices to raise helpful children.
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At a news conference this week, the World Health Organization made a surprising statement: The coronavirus could possibly be transmitted on frozen packages of food.
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The World Health Organization says scientists need to find out whether the coronavirus can be transmitted through frozen meat shipments — a theory the Chinese government has promoted heavily.