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

    Nanosized pollutants pose crop risks

    Nanoparticles in exhaust and common consumer products can end up in soil and harm the growth and health of crops.

  2. Earth

    Antibacterial agent can weaken muscle

    Triclosan impairs the power of the heart and other muscles in two species and at relatively low doses.

  3. Earth

    Extreme hot spells rising

    Analyzing six decades of temperature records reveals inexorable warming and increasing episodes of extreme heat.

  4. Animals

    Epidemic of skin lesions reported in reef fish

    A British-Australian research team has just found coral trout living on the south side of the Great Barrier Reef sporting dark skin raised, scablike, brown-black growths. Although the authors believe they’ve stumbled onto an epidemic of melanoma — a type of skin cancer — other experts have their doubts. Strong ones.

  5. Humans

    So long Weekly Reader . . .

    I read with sadness this week that Weekly Reader is about to disappear. As much as I’ll miss the idea of the venerable Weekly Reader living on, I also have to admit to a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. This conflict developed shortly after I joined the staff here. As soon as I identified my affiliation, people frequently asked: “Science News — hmmm: Isn’t that the Weekly Reader of science?”

  6. Earth

    Night lights may foster depression

    In animals, chronic dim light triggers brain changes that disappear with the return of nightlong darkness.

  7. Tech

    FDA bans BPA in baby bottles, cups

    From now on, U.S. manufacturers may no longer produce polycarbonate baby bottles and sippy cups (for toddlers) if the clear plastic had been manufactured from bisphenol A, a hormone-mimicking compound. Long-awaited, the announcement is anything but a bold gesture. The Obama administration decided to lock this barn door after the cow had died.

  8. Humans

    Putting BPA-based dental fillings in perspective

    A new study finds that children who have their cavities filled with a white composite resin known as bis-GMA appear to develop small but quantifiable drops in psychosocial function. To put it simply: Treated kids can become more moody, aggressive and generally less well adjusted.

  9. Health & Medicine

    White dental fillings may impair kids’ behavior

    Effects seen only for fillings that used bis-GMA, a resin derived from bisphenol A.

  10. Earth

    Warming indicted for extreme weather

    Climate change can explain some 2011 departures from the norm.

  11. Paleontology

    Not your typical pterosaur

    A beautifully preserved fossil from Germany displays a wing unlike any ever seen.

  12. Humans

    Warning to bats: Cuddle not

    Ecologist Kate Langwig of Boston University and her colleagues want Eastern bats to listen up: No more cuddling — at least during hibernation. Just keep those wings to yourselves.