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. Earth

    Plants seen as unpredictable carbon sponge

    Changing land-use practices—especially in forests, croplands, and fallow areas—appear to play a far bigger role than anticipated in determining how much carbon gets removed from the air by vegetation.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Chocolate Hearts

    Preliminary studies indicate that moderate consumption of chocolate products may offer cardiovascular benefits.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Chocolate Therapies (with Recipe for Janet’s Chocolate Medicinal Mousse Pie)

    Recently harvested cacao pods. Each holds several dozen seeds, from which chocolate and cocoa are made. (Allen M. Young) Copy of 1688 engraving by Phillippe Sylvestre Dufour of South American native with a chocolate pot and drinking cup at his feet and a molinet to stir the medicinal brew in his left hand. In his […]

  4. Earth

    Hey polluters! This billboard’s for you

    Motorists generally like and respond to personalized billboard messages about when an engine tune-up may be warranted.

  5. Agriculture

    Afghanistan’s Seed Banks Destroyed

    On Sept. 10, scientists in Kabul reported the loss of Afghanistan’s principal agricultural insurance policy: two stores of carefully collected seeds, materials selected to represent the genetic diversity of native crops. Here, some of the wheat seed brought into the country by a convoy, this spring, is being stored pending redistribution to Afghan farmers. USAID […]

  6. Agriculture

    Sprawling over croplands

    Satellite imagery indicates that sprawling urban development has been disproportionately gobbling up those lands best able to support crops.

  7. Glacial warming’s pollutant threat

    Some Arctic wildlife are being exposed to high amounts of toxic wastes as glacial melting releases pollutants that had been buried in ice for decades.

  8. Animals

    Many fish run on empty

    Many fish eat all the time, while some others spend their days going from brief feast to lengthy famine.

  9. Ecosystems

    No Way to Make Soup—Thirty-two tons of contraband shark fins seized on the high seas

    Something looked suspicious. This former swordfishing vessel, out of Honolulu, was clearly heavy with cargo when discovered by U.S. law-enforcement officials 350 miles off of Acapulco, on Aug. 13. A boarding team found no fishing–just shark fins. However, under a new federal law, transporting fins collected by another fishing vessel constitutes illegal “fishing.” US Coast […]

  10. Earth

    Cigarette smoke can harm kitty, too

    Compared with animals living in smokefree homes, cats who lived for some time with a smoker at least doubled their risk of developing the feline analog of the cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Cooking Up a Carcinogen

    The discovery that acrylamide—a known animal carcinogen—forms in many foods as they fry or bake has prompted the development of an international research network to investigate whether it poses a threat.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Fruit: Towards Virtual Taste Tests

    When it comes to fresh fruit, looks can be deceiving. The prettiest apples may be tasteless or their texture mealy. Intact, ruby-hued skin may hide a large, mushy bruise. As a result, each purchase becomes somewhat of a gamble. Federal engineers with the Agricultural Research Service hope to up a buyer’s odds with a system […]