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. Humans

    Diabetes drug and conflicts of interest

    A U.S. senator outed a noted diabetes researcher for breaking confidentiality and leaking a study while he was peer-reviewing it for a major journal.

  2. Humans

    Web Special: Diabetes drug and conflicts of interest

    A U.S. senator outed a noted diabetes researcher for breaking confidentiality and leaking a study while he was peer reviewing it for a major journal.

  3. Humans

    Web Special: Diabetes drug and conflicts of interest

    A U.S. senator outed a noted diabetes researcher for breaking confidentiality and leaking a study while he was peer reviewing it for a major journal.

  4. Earth

    Fabulon: Looking less fabulous

    The source of polychlorinated biphenyls found heavily tainting some homes—and their dwellers—appears to be a durable topcoat for hardwood floors that was widely used a half-century ago.

  5. Humans

    Want a Science Debate?

    Presidential contenders have been debating a broad range of issues. Science isn't one of them.

  6. Environment

    How Plastic We’ve Become

    Uncle Sam has confirmed it: Our bodies carry residues of kitchen plastics.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Night lights may foster cancer

    Regularly working through the night appears to come at a steep cost—a heightened risk of cancer.

  8. Humans

    Judging Science

    Scientists and legal scholars argue that studies conducted with litigation in mind are not necessarily more biased than research done for other purposes.

  9. Agriculture

    A Sweeter Hops

    Federal scientists have bred a new, antimicrobial-rich hops variety for tea.

  10. Earth

    Smog’s heavy impacts

    Being overweight increases the risk that people will develop breathing difficulties after encountering smoggy air.

  11. Health & Medicine

    It’s Spud Time

    The United Nations wants more people to appreciate the potato's potential to fight world hunger.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Vitamin D: Blacks need much more

    To achieve healthy concentrations of vitamin D, many African-Americans may need hefty daily supplementation.