Janet Raloff

Janet Raloff

Editor, Digital, Science News Explores

Editor Janet Raloff has been a part of the Science News Media Group since 1977. While a staff writer at Science News, she covered the environment, toxicology, energy, science policy, agriculture and nutrition. She was among the first to give national visibility to such issues as electromagnetic pulse weaponry and hormone-mimicking pollutants, and was the first anywhere to report on the widespread tainting of streams and groundwater sources with pharmaceuticals. A founding board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, her writing has won awards from groups including the National Association of Science Writers. In July 2007, while still writing for Science News, Janet took over Science News Explores (then known as Science News for Kids) as a part-time responsibility. Over the next six years, she expanded the magazine's depth, breadth and publication cycle. Since 2013, she also oversaw an expansion of its staffing from three part-timers to a full-time staff of four and a freelance staff of some 35 other writers and editors. Before joining Science News, Janet was managing editor of Energy Research Reports (outside Boston), a staff writer at Chemistry (an American Chemical Society magazine) and a writer/editor for Chicago's Adler Planetarium. Initially an astronomy major, she earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (with an elective major in physics).

All Stories by Janet Raloff

  1. Health & Medicine

    Dietary Inflation

    “Finish what’s on your plate!” Thus has a multitude of well-intentioned moms exhorted millions of children, in an attempt to ensure good nutrition. Unfortunately, dieticians now find, too many grownups still feel compelled to empty their plates–even when those plates contain substantially more calories than our bodies need. Add to that the fact that modern […]

  2. Earth

    Why the Mercury Falls

    Certain pollutants can foster the localized fallout of mercury, a toxic heavy metal, from the atmosphere.

  3. Earth

    Contraceptive ring could pose risks after its disposal

    Discarded vaginal contraceptive rings could interfere with fishes' reproduction by releasing estrogen into streams.

  4. Earth

    The Case for DDT

    What do you do when a dreaded environmental pollutant saves lives?

  5. Health & Medicine

    C-Minus—The Fallout of Parents’ Smoking

    Children who live with smokers may need more oranges and other rich sources of vitamin C, a new study concludes. It finds that exposure to even a little secondhand smoke significantly depresses concentrations of this important vitamin. Oranges are usually the first food that most people think of when asked to name sources of vitamin […]

  6. Health & Medicine

    Stroke protection: A little fish helps

    As little as one serving of fish per month offers protection against the most common form of stroke.

  7. Earth

    Candid cameras catch rare Asian cats

    Remote cameras have confirmed that despite 30 years of armed conflict, jungle cats and many other large mammals continue to thrive in Cambodia.

  8. Health & Medicine

    The Shocking Science of Tender Poultry

    Just over 24 years ago, I wrote a news note on Australian experiments using low-voltage electricity to stimulate beef muscles after slaughter. Data had indicated that applying up to a 110-volt current for 90 seconds to fresh, uncut carcasses would keep the muscle from tightening–and toughening–during subsequent refrigerated storage, even if removed from the bone. […]

  9. Earth

    Rivers run to it

    Increasing freshwater discharges into Arctic waters could disrupt important patterns of deep-water ocean circulation that affect climate.

  10. Earth

    Hawaii’s Hated Frogs

    Wildlife officials in Hawaii are investigating unconventional pesticides to eradicate invasive frogs—or at least to check their advance.

  11. Earth

    Mercurial Effects of Fish-Rich Diets

    In the spring of 2000, one of Jane M. Hightower’s patients had been concerned about hair loss, so the internist referred the woman to a specialist in her building. That dermatologist probed the woman’s medical history but could find no explanation. That is, until she suddenly recalled a radio broadcast about mercury poisoning in people […]

  12. Health & Medicine

    Acrylamide—From Spuds to Gingerbread

    Just in time for the holiday season, the Bavarian Ministry of Health reports finding extremely high concentrations of acrylamide—a chemical that causes cancer in rats—in gingerbread. German chemists turned up acrylamide in a favorite holiday treat: gingerbread. Whether baked at home or fried at a restaurant, all hot-potato products cooked up substantial quantitites of acrylamide. […]