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

    A smart pill for seniors?

    A dietary supplement combo boosts older adults' performance on simple mental tests.

  2. Health & Medicine

    This trick boosts cancer’s spread

    A compound that helps keep cells organized and stitched into tissues may play a role in the survival of cancer cells that have seeded distant tissues in the body.

  3. Cancer patients aided by yoga

    In breast cancer patients, practicing yoga appears to reduce both depression and biochemical markers of inflammation.

  4. Alzheimer’s marker yields blood test

    Studies in mice suggest that it could be possible to screen blood for early, asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease.

  5. Agriculture

    Bugged wines

    Stinky compounds emitted by ladybugs can impart a foul taste to wines made from grapes on which the insects had been feeding.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Gardeners’ Friend Causes a Stink

    An invasive ladybug species is contributing a bad taste to wines made from infested grapes.

  7. Tech

    Wanted: Better Yardsticks

    A new federal survey has found that a lack of measurement tools may jeopardize the United States' edge in technological innovation.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Diet for a Noisy Planet

    Oral doses of a combination of certain antioxidants and magnesium can significantly limit the risk of noise-induced hearing loss, an animal study finds.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Cinnamon and Diabetes—Disease Type Appears to Matter

    Cinnamon isn't the answer for teens with the autoimmune form of diabetes.

  10. Chemistry

    Gene dispensers

    A new gene therapy technique releases genetic material from successive nanoscale layers of DNA as sheets of polyester that hold them in place slowly degrade.

  11. Materials Science

    Color-tunable sunglasses

    Engineers have developed sunglasses that can change from dark, filtering hues to clear—and back—at the flip of a switch.

  12. Health & Medicine

    New agent to spy clogged arteries

    To improve the detection of harmful arterial plaques, researchers have modeled a nanoparticle on a natural material: good cholesterol.