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. Physics

    Apollo or Manhattan Project: Which Paradigm Fits Energy Better?

    A new petition developed to lobby the presidential candidates argues that increased federal investments in basic energy research are essential.

  2. Health & Medicine

    The Candidates’ Shadow Health Advisers

    Here are a few names from the teams of advisers counseling the presidential candidates.

  3. Climate

    Energy: Apollo-like Program Needed

    Big action and big bucks are needed to deal with the United States' energy problems, research leaders argued today.

  4. Humans

    The presidential candidates on science

    The Science Debate 2008 team sent science and technology questions to Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. Find out how they answered.

  5. Astronomy

    McCain Is Bullish on R&D

    Featured blog: John McCain weighs in on science and technology issues with long-awaited written responses to the Science Debate 2008.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Averting Medical Mistakes

    Work-hour reforms are needed to protect both the youngest, most-inexperienced doctors and the hospital patients they're charged with treating.

  7. Tech

    Cops Might Get Pollution Sniffers

    One day soon, precise up-to-minute air pollution data might be available at a street-by-street level.

  8. Agriculture

    Network Antennas — Yum!

    Sensor designers might have to consider engineering in bovine deterrence.

  9. Humans

    College Illiterates

    Students seem increasingly apathetic to the printed word.

  10. Humans

    Obama Likes Research

    Featured blog: The Obama campaign answers 14 questions posed by the Science Debate 2008 committee, and research figured prominently in most of the answers.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Candidates weigh in on biomedicine

    Obama and McCain weigh in on stem cells, federal research funding, and preventive medicine.

  12. Humans

    Kids Deserve Their Own Science News

    Where to find cool and informative middle-school-appropriate news on science: Here.