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 Pollution Sticks in People

    A new study reveals high blood concentrations of a potentially toxic component of nonstick products in people near a plant making Teflon.

  2. Health & Medicine

    The Kindest Cuts Are Underwater

    Fruits and veggies stay fresher longer when they're peeled and sliced underwater, not on the countertop.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Sun Struck: Data suggest skin cancer epidemic looms

    The incidence of non-melanoma skin cancers in young adults is mushrooming, possibly heralding an epidemic in follow-up cancers during the coming decades.

  4. Earth

    Study finds low battlefield hazard in depleted uranium

    A calculation of the health impacts from the use of depleted uranium in antitank munitions projects small increases in the risk of lung cancer and colon cancer, but only for the most heavily exposed individuals.

  5. Agriculture

    Feds pull approval of poultry antibiotic

    The FDA has announced its intent to ban an antibiotic used by poultry farmers because of concerns that continued use of the drug could make it harder to successfully treat food poisoning in people with products from the same class of antibiotics.

  6. Earth

    Infants pick up toxic chemicals in intensive care

    Newborns in intensive care units absorb high concentrations of a potentially toxic phthalate from the plastic tubing and other equipment used in treating them.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Coming Soon—Broccoli and Peach ‘Seaweeds’

    California researchers are developing fruit- and vegetable-based surrogates for a paperlike seaweed product, typically used in sushi, to brighten foods and infuse them with all-natural nutrients.

  8. Health & Medicine

    How ‘Green’ Is Home Cooking?

    From an environmental perspective, made-from-scratch meals aren't much better than ready-to-eat, store-bought meals are in consuming fewer resources and contributing less to pollution.

  9. Earth

    Ultrasound solution to toxin pollution

    Ultrasound treatment of water can generate reactive chemicals that destroy potentially lethal algal toxins.

  10. Agriculture

    Soy-protein quality versus quantity

    New tests show that as the protein yields of soybeans rise, the growth-enhancing quality of that protein as a food or feed decreases.

  11. Earth

    Toxic Surfs

    Scientists have discovered not only three new mechanisms by which an alga species in Florida water can poison but also a trio of natural antidotes produced within that same species.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Money Matters in Obesity

    The higher cost of healthier food choices could be a major factor fostering the consumption of especially fattening fare.