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. Earth

    Living routes to toxic routs

    Scientists are developing novel techniques for removing perchlorate, a potentially carcinogenic pollutant, from water.

  2. Earth

    China: A mercury megapolluter

    China's heavy reliance on coal burning makes it a world leader in mercury air pollution.

  3. Earth

    Methylmercury’s toxic toll

    More than 60,000 children are born each year with neurodevelopmental impairments due to their prenatal exposure to methylmercury.

  4. Earth

    When do EMFs disturb the heart?

    Whether electromagnetic fields can blunt the healthy variability in heart rate may depend on an exposed individual being aroused or stressed during exposure.

  5. Ecosystems

    Ultimate Sea Weed Loose in America

    The unusually invasive strain of seaweed that has been smothering coastal areas of the Mediterranean has shown up in a California lagoon, the first sighting of this ecologically devastating alga in the Americas.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Stress-prone? Altering the diet may help

    Tailoring a diet to fuel the brain with the precursor of a mood-enhancing chemical may help vulnerable individuals cope with stress.

  7. Earth

    The Case for DDT

    What do you do when a dreaded environmental pollutant saves lives?

  8. Earth

    Candid cameras catch rare Asian cats

    Remote cameras have confirmed that despite 30 years of armed conflict, jungle cats and many other large mammals continue to thrive in Cambodia.

  9. Earth

    Excreted Drugs: Something Looks Fishy

    Drugs that the body can't fully use enter waste water, where they may affect aquatic life—or wind up in tap water.

  10. Earth

    Algal bloom is smothering Florida coral

    The anomalous growth of a native alga—now blanketing the seabed in a huge swath off the southern coast of Florida—points to overfertilization with upwelling sewage.

  11. Earth

    Dioxin cuts the chance of fathering a boy

    More girls than boys are fathered by men who sustained a relatively high environmental exposure to dioxin from a 1976 factory explosion in Italy.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Salt trial provokes DASH of skepticism

    Though a new study finds that dramatic salt restriction can lower blood pressure, even among people without hypertension, some critics challenge its value in setting new dietary guidelines for all adults.