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

    Seeing Red and Finding Fraudulent Fish

    The sale of falsely labeled fish has implications for health, nutrition, and the environment.

  2. Earth

    Skin proves poor portal for arsenic in treated wood

    Direct contact with old-style pressure-treated lumber should pose little risk that arsenic will penetrate the skin.

  3. Humans

    The high cost of staying current

    Reading peer-reviewed journals remains a primary means by which researchers stay on top of developments in their fields, but the annual costs for these periodicals are steep.

  4. Earth

    Treaty enacted to preserve crop biodiversity

    The United Nations enacted a new international treaty to halt the erosion of genetic diversity of crops.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Counting Carbs

    Although low-carbohydrate diets can be powerful weight-loss tools, many physicians now conclude they aren't for anyone who isn't under a doctor's watchful eye.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Don’t Expect Too Much of Soy

    Two new studies find soy isn't an effective hormone-replacement alternative for postmenopausal women.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Caloric threats from sugarfree drinks?

    Regularly downing sweet drinks or sugar substitutes may foster overeating by reprogramming an individual's ability to judge a snack's caloric impact.

  8. Agriculture

    A Maize-ing Travels

    Corn, an American native, has taken root the world over and is becoming increasingly important to agriculture in nations beyond the West.

  9. Agriculture

    Coming Soon—Spud Lite

    A new variety of baking potato has about 25 percent fewer calories and 30 percent fewer carbohydrates per unit weight than the typical brown-skinned Idaho potato.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Tea and a Daughter’s Puberty

    The age at which a girl first starts her monthly menstrual periods is later among daughters of tea drinkers than among daughters of moms who typically choose coffee or another beverage.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Green tea takes on poison

    Green tea contains a broad range of compounds that detoxify dioxin.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Americans eat faster, and more

    More and more people are eating at fast-food restaurants, and they down significantly more calories on the days they do.