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

    Nonstick Taints: Fluorochemicals are in us all

    A new federal study strongly suggests that all U.S. residents harbor measurable traces of fluorochemicals, compounds found in a host of consumer products.

  2. Earth

    Antibiotics afield

    Antibiotics shed by livestock in manure can end up in crops or bound to soil, where they can foster disease-resistant germs.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Dairy fats cut colon cancer risk

    High-fat dairy foods appear to confer protection against colon cancer.

  4. Earth

    Sex and the sewage

    Chemicals in sewage sludge appear to have stunted the testes and fostered other reproductive-system changes in fetal lambs.

  5. Humans

    Katrina’s Fallout

    Scientists whose laboratories were devastated by Hurricane Katrina have found help, and sometimes safe havens for their studies, from colleagues around the nation.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Vitamin D Boosts Calcium Potency

    Women whose diets are rich in vitamin D appear to need less calcium to preserve their bones' health.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Leaden Chocolates

    Chocolates have a dark secret, lead contamination, which generally correlates with a product's cocoa concentrations.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Inflammation-Fighting Fat

    A constituent of dairy fat may one day serve as a substitute for aspirin and other inflammation-fighting agents.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Light Therapy for Tainted Fish

    Shining ultraviolet light on the meal fed to farmed fish could destroy dioxins and limit the amount of those toxic chemicals that people get in the fish they eat.

  10. Health & Medicine

    We’re All Likely to Get Fat

    A study based on decades of data from the Framingham Heart Study finds that in the United States, the vast majority of people entering middle age already have gained or slowly gain enough weight to be classified as overweight or obese.

  11. Humans

    A Galling Business

    Efforts are under way to halt both poaching and inhumane farming of bears to supply bile, an ingredient used in traditional Asian medicine.

  12. Health & Medicine

    When Kids Eat Out

    Adolescents who often eat french fries and other fast food away from home tend to be heavier and to gain weight faster than those who eat most of their meals at home.