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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Decades back, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker had a radical idea to fight against inflation.
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The first lottery was a royal affair with poems, golden flatware and invited criminals. Also, how someone won the lottery over and over. -
The line between trash and recycling is moving a lot these days. It's a tough time to be a recycler.
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The Internet Archive and the University of Maryland launch such a library, and it's free to anyone with an Internet connection. Kids helped design the library, and they had final say on the books.
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The National Flood Insurance Program was operates like an insurance company in many ways except one: it just about always loses money. This piece originally aired on Morning Edition in January 2013.
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The creation of the electronic spreadsheet transformed industries. But its effects ran deeper than that. -
Inflation is so low that it's nearly nonexistent now. But it most certainly wasn't always that way. The Planet Money team tells the story of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's wild fight against inflation, his radical idea, and how the U.S. tamed inflation — maybe for good.
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement has been hashed out line-by-line. All 6,000 pages of it. It will set the rules for roughly one-third of world trade. It has precise requirements for tariffs, quotas and subsidies for all manner of goods. But there's one huge secret tariff that isn't included: currency manipulation.
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Economic news coming out of China often rattles or rallies global markets. But how reliable is that news? It turns out basic measures like Gross National Product may be far from accurate.
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You can spend millions on lobbyists or ads to influence the presidential election, but it is mostly illegal to bet on who will win the White House. But centuries ago, people bet on the papal election.
