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. Soy estrogen laces paper-mill wastes

    Paper-mill effluent contains an estrogen-mimicking pollutant at concentrations that may adversely affect reproduction in fish.

  2. Earth

    Lead Therapy Won’t Help Most Kids

    Removing lead from the blood fails to spare even moderately exposed children from cognitive impairments.

  3. Earth

    A dietary cost of our appetite for gold

    This Mothers Day, many moms will find their brood and mates proffering glittering booty: sparkling necklaces, earrings, bracelets, brooches, and rings fashioned in whole or in part of gold. There may also be gilded plates, glasses, and grandmas favorite–fragile, matched sets of hand-painted tea cups and saucers. As women admire these tokens of their loved […]

  4. Earth

    Even low lead in kids has a high IQ cost

    Lead can damage a young child's ability to learn and reason at exposures far lower than the limit deemed acceptable by the U.S. government.

  5. Earth

    Beware bathtub wines

    Heres a healthy tip for home vintners: Save the bathtub for cleaning your body–not for storing crushed grapes. Bob Savidge A 66-year-old Australian man paid a high price for his habit of periodically tapping a pair of bathtubs for winemaking: periodic bouts of intense abdominal pain, constipation, and mood swings for more than 2 years. […]

  6. Ecosystems

    Underwater Refuge

    Efforts are under way to greatly expand coastal no-fishing zones.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Germ-killing plastic wrap

    Biodegradable plastic that releases germ killers provides an example of what’s known as active packaging, and scientists report progress toward taking this concept to market. Paul Dawson and his colleagues at Clemson (S.C.) University are fashioning plastics from proteins found in corn, soy, and wheat. While these biodegradable polymers are being heated or compressed to […]

  8. Health & Medicine

    Blood markers of clogging arteries emerge

    The concentration in blood of one chemically transformed cholesterol-carrying molecule may signal to doctors when a patient's heart disease has dangerously worsened.

  9. Anticancer mineral works best in food

    Selenium's anticancer benefits may depend on ingestion of the mineral in food, not as a purified dietary supplement.

  10. Keeping antioxidants may spare gut

    Inflammatory bowel disease may initially be triggered by chemical reactions that deplete affected tissues of a key antioxidant.

  11. Pulling antioxidants starves cancers

    Realizing that many cancers depend on antioxidants for their survival, researchers have successfully designed a dietary strategy that suppresses breast cancer growth and spread, at least in animals.

  12. Cigarette smoke worsens heart attacks

    Breathing in smoke from another person's cigarette causes blood changes that reduce the likelihood that an individual will survive a heart attack.