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. Lung disease: A human cost of ‘worn’ denim

    Manufacturers have for decades prematurely aged apparel by sandblasting the fabric. A new study out of Turkey finds that some workers charged with giving denim a well-worn look pay a high price: the development of silicosis – an irreversible and potentially lethal lung disease.

  2. Humans

    Mercury surprise: Rice can be risky

    A new study out of China shows that for millions of people at risk of eating toxic amounts of mercury-laced food, fish isn't the problem. Rice is.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Breast implants may mask early cancer

    Breast augmentation is the leading cosmetic surgery in North America, with roughly 400,000 procedures a year in the United States alone. A study now finds some evidence that breast implants may hinder early detection of breast malignancies. The good news: This didn’t affect survival.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Gulf War Syndrome real, Institute of Medicine concludes

    U.S. veterans who claim to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome just received powerful new ammunition against arguments that their symptoms are trivial, if not altogether fictional. On April 9, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that concludes military service in the Persian Gulf War has not only been a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans but also is "associated with multisymptom illness” – as in Gulf War Syndrome.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Traffic’s soot elevates blood pressure

    Legions of studies have shown that air pollution can harm the heart and blood vessels. Scientists now have linked airborne concentrations of tiny black-carbon particles — soot — with increasing blood pressure in older men. They also showed that the genes we inherit appear to play a big role in determining our vulnerability to soot’s pressurizing impacts.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Walnuts may slow prostate cancer

    More news from the American Chemical Society meeting.

  7. Humans

    D.C. as science mecca

    Not only is the D.C. area a center of research policy, but many scientific societies also call this place home. Still, I was a bit surprised to find out that fully one in 10 of our area residents work in research-related fields. That’s 50 percent more than in the next biggest hive of research: the New York City metro area.

  8. Chemistry

    American Chemical Society meeting highlights

    Read Science News reporters' complete coverage of the recent chemistry conference.

  9. Health & Medicine

    U.S. health system not adequately prepared for the aging sick

    Is the U.S. healthcare system prepared to deal with aging patients who have at least two chronic medical conditions — ones that will each require at least a year of ongoing treatment? “Current indications suggest that it is not,” two physicians at the Department of Health and Human Services conclude.

  10. Chemistry

    Study reports hints of phthalate threat to boys’ IQs

    You may have a hard time spelling phthalates, but there’s no avoiding them. They’re in the air you breathe, water you drink and foods you eat. And this ubiquity may carry a price, particularly for young boys, emerging data suggest. Including a drop in their IQ.

  11. Chemistry

    Skin as a source of drug pollution

    Traces of over-the-counter and prescription meds taint the environment. The presumption Ì and it's a good one Ì has been that most of these residues come from the urine and solid wastes excreted by treated patients. But in some instances, a leading source of a drug may be skin Ì either because the medicine was applied there or because people sweat it out.

  12. Chemistry

    Mothballs deserve respect

    I don’t use mothballs — except sometimes to sprinkle down the burrows of animals excavating tunnels beneath the deck floor of my pergola. It’s the most effective stop-work order for wildlife that I’ve found. But I won’t use these stinky crystals inside my home because they scare me. And those fears appear justified, according to Linda Hall of the California Environmental Protection Agency.