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. Materials Science

    Velcro on steroids

    Researchers have designed a steel analog of a well-known fastener.

  2. Animals

    Vultures get their day

    Hurray for avian garbage collectors.

  3. Humans

    Medicare changes threaten access to radiation therapy

    Oncologists worry that proposed Medicare cuts could result in dramatically reduced access to radiation therapy, even for non-Medicare patients.

  4. Earth

    Sun is setting on incandescent era

    After more than a century, Edison's light bulbs stand poised to go extinct.

  5. Earth

    Cash for clunkers II: Appliances

    States could soon roll out programs that help consumers replace energy hogging home appliances.

  6. Chemistry

    Nitrous oxide fingered as monster ozone slayer

    Nitrous oxide has become the leading threat to the future integrity of stratospheric ozone, scientists report.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Probiotics: Better off dead?

    Treating the gut to microbial therapy doesn't necessarily require using live bacteria.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Herbal supplementation can be an empty gesture

    Chemical analyses show some botanical extracts contain little of the plant material they were supposed to possess.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Feds won’t cover PET scans during isotope crisis

    One alternative procedure for scouting bone cancers is theoretically available, but currently may be an option only for people with deep pockets.

  10. Tech

    How medicine is ‘barely managing’ the isotope crisis

    Medicine is managing a prolonged and record shortfall in the principal diagnostic-imaging isotope by triaging the most urgent patients, substituting less effective procedures and working longer hours.

  11. Chemistry

    Drugged money

    U.S. greenbacks are especially effective at pocketing tiny traces of cocaine.

  12. Tech

    Isotope crisis threatens medical care

    Global production of the feedstock for the leading medical-imaging isotope is low and erratic, putting health care in jeopardy.