Ari Daniel
Ari Daniel is a reporter for NPR's Science desk where he covers global health and development.
Ari has always been drawn to science and the natural world. As a graduate student, Ari trained gray seal pups (Halichoerus grypus) for his Master's degree in animal behavior at the University of St. Andrews, and helped tag wild Norwegian killer whales (Orcinus orca) for his Ph.D. in biological oceanography at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. For more than a decade, as a science reporter and multimedia producer, Ari has interviewed a species he's better equipped to understand – Homo sapiens.
Over the years, Ari has reported across five continents on science topics ranging from astronomy to zooxanthellae. His radio pieces have aired on NPR, The World, Radiolab, Here & Now, and Living on Earth. Ari formerly worked as the Senior Digital Producer at NOVA where he helped oversee the production of the show's digital video content. He is a co-recipient of the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award for his stories on glaciers and climate change in Greenland and Iceland.
In the fifth grade, Ari won the "Most Contagious Smile" award.
-
An experiment with threadfin butterflyfish finds that these fish may experience pleasure while being cleaned by bluestreak cleaner wrasse — suggesting this capacity goes far back in animal evolution. -
No one wants rats scurrying about their neighborhood. But they're a cunning and evasive foe. Now, a community near Boston is trying their luck with a different approach: rat birth control.
-
A new study finds that chimpanzee babies learn vocal and visual communication patterns from their mothers. The findings may shed light on the way human babies learn from those close to them. -
Scientists have long wondered about how the potato's genetic lineage came to be. Now they know: The plants are a cross between tomatoes and a plant known as Etuberosum. -
This week a new word made its public debut. With an increase in attacks on health care facilities and personnel, the goal of this coinage is to spark outrage and outcry. But the reaction is mixed. -
In 1969, a team of researchers took a patch of forest in central New Hampshire and mapped the territories of the songbirds inhabiting it. For more than half a century, that work has continued, revealing insights about the forest and its birds with evermore modern techniques.
-
Scientists are driving around in white Chevys, releasing thousands of specially engineered mosquitoes from tubes — part of a pioneering project to reduce the spread of dengue, a terrible disease. -
A small, hairy, toxic version of the cucumbers found in the produce aisle does have an advantage over its more palatable cousins — a feat of ballistic seed dispersal. -
July 1 is the official end date for the agency that President Trump dismantled. We talk to four former top officials about this milestone event. -
The Ecosystems Mission Area helps researchers track everything from birds and bees to floods and fires. Trump wants to cut it by about 90%, gutting a key federal ecological program.
