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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Faulty forms of the brain protein tau trigger tangles inside and outside brain cells of Alzheimer's patients. Scientists say figuring out how to stop bad tau's spread from cell to cell might be key.
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The rate for routine vaccinations of babies used to be 97 percent. Now the figure is 27 percent. Blame it on the rippling effects of the outbreak.
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There's one place in Monrovia where people continue to gather together despite the threat of Ebola: Sunday church service. One reverend knows firsthand how the smallest mistake can be deadly.
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A wearable PET scanner and lasers that could control individual brain circuits are among the projects funded by a $46 million federal effort to accelerate research on the human brain.
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If you have a problem with your heart or liver, the diagnosis is likely to be made by a lab test or medical image. But neurologist Allan Ropper says those tests often fail when it comes to the brain.
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Justin McCowan wanted to help find a cure for Alzheimer's because it's more common in people like him who have Down syndrome. He died in his sleep last week at age 40.
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By age 40, the brains of people with Down syndrome start to resemble those of Alzheimer's patients. Scientists hope to speed up Alzheimer's drug development by studying people with Down syndrome.
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Children learn their most important lessons on the playground, not in the classroom, researchers say.
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Since the hormone oxytocin makes people more social, it's easy to imagine it might cause the social deficits of autism. But a study found children with autism no more likely to be short of oxytocin.
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Scientists have evidence that beats in the brain — in the form of rhythmic electrical pulses — are involved in everything from memory to motion. And music can help when those rhythms go wrong.