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

    Coffee, Spices, Wine

    Several dietary agents, including coffee, wine, and cinnamon, appear to restore some of the body's responsiveness to insulin, potentially slowing diabetes' onset or ravages.

  2. Earth

    Prenatal exposures affect sperm later

    Boys exposed in the womb to hormone-mimicking pollutants may mature into men who produce impaired sperm.

  3. Earth

    Toxic color TVs and computer monitors

    High concentrations of lead can leach from the X-ray-filtering glass used in picture tubes, suggesting that this glass should be treated as hazardous waste.

  4. Earth

    Chicken Farming, Ammonia, and Coastal Threats

    Chicken farming can contribute significant amounts of ammonia to the environment, including coastal waters.

  5. Health & Medicine

    When It’s No Longer Baby Fat

    Increasingly, children are plump by the time they enter school, and they get fatter as they grow.

  6. Earth

    Inhaling your food—and its cooking fuel

    Cooking emits easily inhaled pollutants that travel throughout a home and can linger for hours.

  7. Earth

    New U.N. treaty on toxic exports

    The United Nations enacted a new treaty to ban exportation of any of a list of toxic chemicals without the prior informed consent of an importing nation.

  8. Earth

    Smoking out a source of painful menses

    Breathing in secondhand smoke may contribute to the development of menstrual cramps.

  9. Earth

    Allergic to computing?

    The plastic cases of certain computer monitors emit a chemical—triphenyl phosphate—that can cause allergic reactions.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Inflammatory Fat

    Immune system cells may underlie much of the disease-provoking injury in obese individuals that has been linked to their excess fat.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Calcium Superchargers

    Foods such as yogurts supplemented with fiberlike sugars are developing into the latest wave in functional foods–commercial goods seeded with ingredients that boost their nutritiousness or healthfulness. Makers of foods doctored with these unusual, nearly flavorless sugars claim that their products improve the body’s absorption of calcium in the diet, thereby offering bones a treat. […]

  12. Animals

    Cetacean Seniors

    Whales that give new meaning to longevity.