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. Tech

    Cans bring BPA to dinner, FDA confirms

    Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA.

  2. Life

    Microbes may sky jump to new hosts

    The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

  3. Earth

    Germy with a chance of hail

    Aerial microbes can trigger precipitation and may influence global warming.

  4. Humans

    It’s time to put a price on carbon, NRC says

    “It is imprudent to delay actions that at least begin the process of substantially reducing emissions [of greenhouse gases],” according to a May 12 report by the National Research Council. It didn’t get a lot of press play in the past week, perhaps because its 144 pages don’t say anything readers might not have expected this august body to have proclaimed years ago. But that shouldn’t diminish the significance of this report, its authors contend.

  5. Chemistry

    Melting icebergs fertilize ocean

    Releasing extra iron into the water boosts carbon dioxide uptake by plankton.

  6. Chemistry

    Idling jets pollute more than thought

    Oily droplets emitted by planes operating at low power can turn into potentially toxic airborne particles.

  7. Life

    Fungus strikes but doesn’t kill European bats

    Organism that is devastating North American populations might have coevolved with hosts overseas.

  8. Earth

    With warming, Arctic is losing ground

    Scientists anticipate big ecosystem changes as erosion spills nutrients into the sea

  9. Physics

    Salt clouds relieve some Arctic warming

    Sea sprays from increasingly open waters exert a cooling effect in the region.

  10. Humans

    Because some foods carry organophosphate residues

    Three new papers link prenatal exposures to organophosphate (OP) pesticides with diminished IQs in children. Fruits and veggies are one continuing source of exposure to these bug killers. As to what we’re supposed to do with that knowledge — well, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization, offers some guidance.

  11. Chemistry

    Pesticides tied to lower IQ in children

    Chemicals once sprayed in homes — and still used on farms — were found to have significant effects in three studies.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Simple-sugar effects aren’t necessarily simple, animal study suggests

    New mouse data suggest that even among seemingly identical sugars, how they are delivered can exert subtle metabolic differences with long-term impacts on vitality -- and lifespan.