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

    Insulin inaction may hurt even nondiabetics

    Flawed insulin activity may lead to blood changes that foster atherosclerosis, even in people who don't have diabetes.

  2. Chemistry

    New solution for kitchen germs

    Acidic electrolyzed water appears to kill foodborne germs more effectively than a bath of dilute bleach.

  3. Chemistry

    Toxic runoff from plastic mulch

    Pesticide runoff from tomato fields covered with sheets of plastic can kill fish, clams, and other aquatic life.

  4. Chemistry

    Germ-killing plastic wrap

    Scientists have developed biodegradable plastics that release natural germ-killing agents onto the foods wrapped inside.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Fighting cancer from the cabbage patch

    Extracts of foods belonging to the cabbage family can block the action of estrogen, a hormone that fuels many cancers.

  6. Humans

    Postdocs warrant more status and support

    A new study finds a pressing need to improve the pay and status of postdoctoral scholars.

  7. Earth

    Girls may face risks from phthalates

    The high incidence of premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls has been linked with phthalates, a family of ubiquitous pollutants found in plastics, lubricants, and solvents.

  8. Earth

    New Concerns about Phthalates

    Boys may face an eventual reproductive risk from exposure to some of the ingredients that go into many common plastics, cosmetics, and medical supplies.

  9. Earth

    Cars’ ammonia may sabotage tailpipe gains

    Though cars' catalytic converters clean up some of the acidic contributors to urban haze and particulates pollution, a subset of these pollution-control devices seems to foster the production of ammonia, another pivotal ingredient in haze and particulates.

  10. Earth

    Estrogen effects linger in male fish

    Male fish can inappropriately make egg yolk protein, even when only intermittently exposed to water tainted with an estrogenic pollutant.

  11. Earth

    Death for the killer seaweed

    Biologists have launched a campaign to eradicate the first infestation in open American waters of an invasive mutant algae.

  12. Agriculture

    Detoxifying Desert’s Manna

    Farmers need no longer fear the sweet pea's dryland cousin.