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

    No Peanuts for Your Peanut

    Youngsters are developing peanut allergies earlier because of exposures in babyhood.

  2. Humans

    Strategies to improve teaching

    Incorporating emerging data on how kids learn and cement ideas could help schools teach science more effectively, a new report argues.

  3. Agriculture

    Lettuce Liability

    A new industry program to self-regulate most salad producers is forcing affected farmers to choose between adopting measures unfriendly to wildlife and a loss of major markets for their greens.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Additives may make youngsters hyper

    Common food colorings and the preservative sodium benzoate have the potential to foster hyperactivity and inattentiveness in children, a new study finds.

  5. Tadpole Slayer: Mystery epidemic imperils frogs

    An emerging protozoal disease has begun to trigger mass die-offs of frog tadpoles throughout much of the United States.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Canadians Advocate Boosting Vitamin D in Pregnancy

    Higher vitamin D intake is recommended for pregnant women and nursing moms in Canada than for those in the United States.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Too little sleep may fatten kids

    Lack of sleep may promote childhood obesity.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Salmonella seeks sweets

    A sugarlike substance in the roots of lettuce may attract food-poisoning bacteria.

  9. Agriculture

    Cleaning Up after Livestock

    Manure collection system sanitizes cattle wastes and makes hay—literally—while the sun shines.

  10. Tag! You’re It

    Biologists catch and tag big sawfish in Florida waters.

  11. Humans

    Math clubs get national sponsor

    A math group is offering all U.S. middle schools free materials to set up clubs aimed at making math fun.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Troubling Meaty ‘Estrogen’

    High temperature cooking can imbue meats with a chemical that acts like a hormone.