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

    Cardiovascular Showdown—Chocolate vs. Coffee

    Chocolate appears to be good for your arteries, whereas coffee—or at least its caffeine—does damage.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Folate enrichment pays baby dividends

    The federally mandated fortification of grain-based foods with folic acid has led to a 25 percent drop in the rate of potentially life-threatening neural tube birth defects.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Cinnamon Cleans the Breath

    Cinnamon can kill oral bacteria, including germs responsible for a chemical that imparts the rotten-egg smell to the breath.

  4. Earth

    Marsh Farming for Profit and the Common Good

    A move is now afoot to get farmers to embrace wetlands as part of their business.

  5. Nicotine limits cold adaptation

    A new study homes in on why smokers may have a harder time staying warm in frigid environments.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Ironing Out Some Mental Limitations

    Iron deficiency can subtly compromise how well a person performs multiple challenging tasks simultaneously.

  7. Chronic vibrations constrict vessels

    Chronic vibrations of the hands can distort and twist some arterial cells to the breaking point, animal research indicates.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Tea Yields Prostate Benefits

    Tea drinking appears to seed the body with compounds that retard the growth of prostate cancer.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Exercise boosts sugar’s taste

    Studies in runners and in animals indicate that exercise increases an individual's sensitivity to sweetness.

  10. SIDS trigger? It’s too darn hot

    Overheating, as might occur if a baby were swaddled in a warm room, might predispose some babies to prolonged breathing lapses and sudden infant death syndrome, animal experiments indicate.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Proteins mark ALS

    Scientists reported finding what appears to be the first diagnostic test for Lou Gehrig's disease, potentially shaving a year off of when targeted treatment for the disease can begin.

  12. Body’s sweet move can protect heart

    Animal studies suggest that the body attempts to protect itself from heart attacks during brief periods of oxygen deprivation by temporarily modifying heart-muscle proteins.