Physics writer Emily Conover joined Science News in 2016. She has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago, where she studied the weird ways of neutrinos, tiny elementary particles that can zip straight through the Earth. She got her first taste of science writing as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She has previously written for Science Magazine and the American Physical Society. She is a two-time winner of the D.C. Science Writers’ Association Newsbrief award.

All Stories by Emily Conover

  1. Particle Physics

    Forests might serve as enormous neutrino detectors 

    Trees could act as antennas that pick up radio waves of ultra-high energy neutrinos interactions, one physicist proposes.

  2. Physics

    ‘Countdown’ takes stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile

    Physicists grapple with their role as stewards of the United States’ aging nuclear weapons in the new book by Sarah Scoles.

  3. Physics

    Here’s how scientists reached nuclear fusion ‘ignition’ for the first time

    The first fusion experiment to produce an energy excess required meticulous planning and also revealed a long-predicted heating phenomenon.

  4. Artificial Intelligence

    AI chatbots can be tricked into misbehaving. Can scientists stop it?

    To develop better safeguards, computer scientists are studying how people have manipulated generative AI chatbots into answering harmful questions.

  5. Physics

    A pivotal quantum theory holds up even in extreme electric fields 

    Quantum electrodynamics, which describes how charged particles and light interact, works in the strong fields around highly ionized uranium atoms.

  6. Physics

    A predicted quasicrystal is based on the ‘einstein’ tile known as the hat

    The einstein tile can cover an infinite plane only with a nonrepeating pattern. A material based on it has features of both crystals and quasicrystals.

  7. Physics

    What happens when lawn sprinklers suck in water? Physicists answer that quirky question

    Experiments with a floating sprinkler and laser-illuminated microparticles revealed the surprisingly complex physics behind a simple question.

  8. Materials Science

    Artificial intelligence helped scientists create a new type of battery 

    It took just 80 hours, rather than decades, to identify a potential new solid electrolyte using a combination of supercomputing and AI.

  9. Physics

    Here’s the science behind the burbling sound of water being poured

    The height of the pour and the thickness of the stream help determine the loudness of the falling water.

  10. Physics

    Invisible comet tails of mucus slow sinking flakes of ‘marine snow’

    New measurements reveal the gunk that surrounds the particles, an important factor in understanding how the ocean sequesters carbon.

  11. Quantum Physics

    A maverick physicist is building a case for scrapping quantum gravity

    To merge quantum physics and general relativity, physicists aim to quantize gravity. But what if gravity isn’t quantum at all?

  12. Astronomy

    50 years ago, astronomers challenged claims that Barnard’s star has a planet

    Astronomers have been searching for planets around the sun’s close neighbor for decades.