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. Humans

    Tulane’s traveling med school

    Houston medical schools opened their facilities to a sister institution in New Orleans whose faculty and students were sent into exile by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters.

  2. Tech

    Humane bloodletting

    Medical researchers have designed a new lancet that dramatically reduces the pain experienced by lab mice during blood-sampling procedures.

  3. Humans

    Benched Science

    As a result of three U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 1990s, people who sue for redress from injury are now less likely to have scientific or medical evidence concerning that injury reach a jury.

  4. Earth

    Save the frogs

    Researchers have drafted a proposed $400 million research-and-rescue plan for the world's amphibians, at least half of which are in decline or even facing serious risk of extinction.

  5. Health & Medicine

    The Sweet Benefit of Giving Olives a Hot Bath

    A simple heat treatment can sweeten the strongly flavored olive oils that some gourmands prefer but many people find to be bitter.

  6. Agriculture

    Wheat Warning—New Rust Could Spread Like Wildfire

    A new, yield-slashing wheat blight has emerged in East Africa and could spread far beyond that part of the world.

  7. Humans

    Docs shy away from telling kids they’re heavy

    A major study has found that doctors don't routinely discuss a child's weight problems with the family, and that the younger the child the less likely the topic will come up.

  8. Earth

    Sow what? Climate reviews help farmers choose

    African subsistence farmers are far likelier to leverage rainfall forecasts into better crop yields after attending workshops explaining the basis for the rain predictions.

  9. Ecosystems

    West Nile virus fells endangered condor

    A 3-month-old California condor chick, one of only four of this highly endangered species born in the wild this year, succumbed to a West Nile virus infection.

  10. Agriculture

    Using Light to Sense Plants’ Health and Diversity

    Laser scanners may help farmers better tailor when and how much to fertilize their crops, with side benefits for the environment.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Dieting? Don’t Give Up Protein

    Dieters will get a weight-loss boost if they make sure both exercise and ample protein are part of their calorie-trimming regimen.

  12. Earth

    Cancer-fighting e-mails

    A new federal service, offered jointly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service, will notify individuals, via e-mail, when the sun's cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation is forecast to be unusually high.