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

    Drug rescues cells that age too fast

    A new drug shows promise toward correcting the accelerated cellular aging typical of Werner syndrome.

  2. Humans

    Preserving Paradise

    President Bush has created the world's largest marine reserve, a no-fishing, no-disturbance zone, surrounding the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

  3. Health & Medicine

    How Advertising Is Becoming Child’s Play

    Food manufacturers are embracing new media to market their products directly to children.

  4. Earth

    Alaskan coral beds get new protection

    To protect cold-water corals, huge areas of Alaskan waters will be off limits to trawls and other fishing gear that typically scrape the seafloor.

  5. Earth

    Asbestos fibers: Barking up a tree

    Sixteen years after a mine with asbestos-contaminated ore shut down, trees in the area still hold hazardous concentrations of wind-deposited asbestos.

  6. Earth

    Warning: Slow down for whales

    To protect a major population of right whales, the U.S. government is proposing periodic go-slow rules for big ships passing through the animals' migration routes.

  7. Agriculture

    Farm Fresh Pesticides

    For people who live near croplands, traces of agricultural chemicals can find their way into homes by hitchhiking on windblown dust.

  8. Earth

    Dirty Little Secret

    Recognition is growing that many communities have soils laced with asbestos, which has prodded several federal agencies to probe the hazards they might pose.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Fruity Relief for Weekend Warriors

    Certain fruit products, such as cherry juice, may reduce pain and speed recovery from muscle injury.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Be Good to Your Gums, Bite Into Whole Grains (with recipe)

    Diets rich in whole grains appear to help ward off a type of gum disease.

  11. Earth

    Something’s fishy about these hormones

    Synthetic steroids used to beef up cattle can impair reproduction in female fish and even give them macho physical traits.

  12. Plants

    Herbal therapy for beleaguered lawns

    Mustard and other herbal remedies can thwart turf attacks by root-feeding roundworms.