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

    Dispersants persisted after BP spill

    Chemicals used to break up oil remained in the Gulf’s depths months after being released, an analysis shows.

  2. Earth

    Glaciers largely stable in one range of Himalayas

    Amid icy retreats in neighboring ranges, ice in Karakoram region may even be growing, thanks to debris cover.

  3. Humans

    Citation-amnesia paper published

    Many biomedical researchers fail to put their findings into context by citing related, previously published work. I termed this citation amnesia, when I wrote about it 18 months ago, based on data presented at a meeting on peer review and publishing. Readers who seek more details than my initial blog provided can now pore over the stats from that research for themselves. The Johns Hopkins University team that I encountered at the Vancouver meeting has now formally published its analysis.

  4. Humans

    Night owls may want to dim their lights

    People who spend their evenings in relatively bright light run the risk of stressing their bodies by ratcheting down the production of melatonin. This hormone plays a pivotal role in setting the body’s biological clock – and, potentially, in limiting the development of certain cancers.

  5. Humans

    One in five has no regular doctor

    Not "needing" a doc is a primary justification.

  6. Science & Society

    Methane from BP spill goes missing

    Latest sampling suggests either that microbes have already devoured the most abundant hydrocarbon produced by the leak — or that researchers have simply lost track of it.

  7. Humans

    Calendar marks chemistry milestones

    January 1, 2011, ushers in the International Year of Chemistry. The American Chemical Society has compiled on online calendar that points to landmark events and trivia to celebrate.

  8. Earth

    Bugged forests bad for climate

    Trees savaged by pine beetles are slow to recover their ecological function as greenhouse gas sponges.

  9. Humans

    Apartments share tobacco smoke

    Children in nonsmoking families have higher levels of secondhand exposure if they live in multifamily dwellings.

  10. Tech

    Dirty money 2: Expect traces of BPA

    BPA showed up on 21 of the 22 greenbacks surveyed in a new study. And the clean dollar? It appeared quite new, suggesting that dollars only become contaminated as they circulate.

  11. Dirty money 1: Expect germs

    China’s yuan banknotes are bacterial magnets, relatively speaking, while Australian dollars circulate virtually germfree. The difference traces to a number of factors — not least being what they’ve been printed on, a new international study concludes.

  12. Tech

    Terrorist-resistant ‘source’ of moly-99 hits the U.S.

    Molybdenum-99 is the radioactive feedstock for the most widely used diagnostic nuclear-medicine isotope. On December 6, the first commercial batch of moly-99 that had been produced using a terrorist-resistant process arrived in the United States from a reactor in South Africa.