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

    How reading may protect the brain

    People who read well show more resistance to the toxic brain effects of lead exposure.

  2. Earth

    Bad for Baby: New risks found for plastic constituent

    Early exposure to bisphenol A, a building block of polycarbonate plastics, can trigger a variety of later health problems.

  3. Earth

    Beware summer radon-test results

    Measuring household radon levels in summer may give misleadingly low results.

  4. Health & Medicine

    CT heart scans: Risk climbs as age at screening falls

    CT scans are increasingly used to investigate heart blockages, but their X rays can increase cancer risk.

  5. Earth

    Cholesterol boosts diesel toxicity

    Nanoparticles in diesel exhaust can activate genes that worsen cholesterol's damaging effects.

  6. Earth

    Hammered Saws

    Sawfish, shark relatives that almost went extinct several decades ago, have now gained protection by international treaty.

  7. Health & Medicine

    A Melon for Dieters and Diabetics

    Novel watermelons offer lots of taste but little sugar.

  8. Health & Medicine

    A Gut Feeling about Coffee

    People's gut microbes digest fiber from coffee in a fermentation process, making beneficial compounds.

  9. Humans

    Universities seek armchair astronomers

    Scientists are recruiting online help from the public to classify the shapes of 1 million galaxies in never-before-viewed photographs.

  10. Science & Society

    Sour Genes, Yes—Salty Genes, No

    A study in twins finds that genes may be responsible for a high or low threshold to the detection of sour tastes, but not of salty ones.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Concerns over Genistein, Part II—Beyond the heart

    Mice eating a diet laced with an estrogen-like constituent of soy display a puzzling variety of changes, some apparently good, some potentially bad.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Restoring Scents

    Experimental treatments may activate the sense of smell in people who can detect few or no odors.