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

    Infectious Foie Gras?

    Foie gras contains misfolded proteins that, when given to mice, trigger disease.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Concerns over Genistein, Part I—The heart of the issue

    One of soy's ostensibly beneficial constituents may aggravate cardiovascular disease, at least in older women.

  3. Earth

    Age and gender affect soot’s toxic impact

    Except in young females, small blood vessels in rodents lost the ability to precisely regulate blood flow after exposure to an oily constituent of diesel soot.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Nutrients linked to brain lesions

    The more calcium and vitamin D elderly individuals consume, the greater the number and size of lesions that show up in their brains.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Super-Size Mice—Fast Food Hurts Rodents

    When rodents eat the equivalent of a fast-food diet, they develop health problems similar to those seen in the movie Super Size Me.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Tea—Milking It

    Adding milk doesn't diminish tea's antioxidant bounty, research finds.

  7. Ecosystems

    Slime Dwellers

    The health of corals, and their adaptability in the face of adversity, may rest largely on the microbes they recruit into a slime that coats their surfaces.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Chocolate Constituent Bests Fluoride

    The beans used to make chocolate can also render a tooth-decay-fighting extract; unfortunately, it's bitter, not chocolaty.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Childhood Vitamin D—A New Benefit?

    Vitamin D may prevent symptoms of asthma in toddlers.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Slimming on oolong

    Rats absorb less dietary fat and gain less weight when their diets contain lots of oolong tea.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Therapeutic sorghum?

    Sorghum's inflammation-fighting activity is comparable to that of a prescription arthritis medicine, animal research indicates.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Childhood Vitamin D—A Dark Side?

    Vitamin D may explain a child's summertime boost in lead absorption, new data indicate.