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. Health & Medicine

    Child-sized medicine

    A new UNICEF campaign pursues youth-appropriate dosing of medicines.

  2. Tech

    Stimulus bill doesn’t ignore R&D

    Featured blog: Here's where the economic-stimulus bill would attempt to revamp and reinvigorate federally financed research.

  3. Humans

    Stimulus Bill Calls for Money and Transparency

    Congress wants to make sure accountability for economic-stimulus funds doesn't vanish the way it has in the recent bank-bailout program.

  4. Humans

    Salazar II: On Freeing Ms. Liberty’s Crown

    A New Jersey senator pleaded with the incoming Interior Secretary to reopen the Statue of Liberty's crown.

  5. Humans

    Salazar I: The Value of Science at Interior

    Flawed Endangered Species Act decisions brought out a request for the Interior Secretary nominee to promise to ground future decisions by the agency firmly on the science.

  6. Nix the Vicks

    A century old treatment for soothing the nasal congestion associated with colds and flu may poses risks to infants, a new study finds.

  7. Earth

    Steven Chu’s Senate Confirmation Looks Certain

    Senate energy committee appreciates Obama's pick for Secretary of Energy.

  8. Earth

    More Signs of Endangered Journalism

    The grim reaper strikes again.

  9. Computing

    Googling: Your Cup of Tea?

    In aggregrate, Internet searches can be fairly polluting.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Big Increase Coming for NIH — Maybe

    The Obama administration hopes to do what lawmakers couldn't last year — give an extra $1 billion to NIH.

  11. Health & Medicine

    EPA should test demasculinizing pollutants collectively, NRC says

    Cumulative effects of phthalates and related compounds likely larger than effects measured one chemical at a time, reports a National Research Council panel.

  12. Climate

    Holdren to Head White House Science

    It appears that another physicist with Nobel ties is set to become the primary Obama adviser on science.