Emily Conover

Emily Conover

Senior Writer, Physics

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. the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment in front of the night sky
    Astronomy

    A fast radio burst’s rapid, steady beat offers a clue to its cosmic origin

    Amped-up neutron stars, pairs of magnetically entangled neutron stars or magnetar quakes could explain a three-second-long train of radio blips.

  2. apples falling with motion blur
    Physics

    Wiggling metal beams offer a new way to test gravity’s strength

    A new experiment aims to get a better handle on “Big G,” the poorly measured gravitational constant.

  3. the LZ dark matter experiment, a long white scientfic apparatus with white bulges capped with yellow tips
    Particle Physics

    A supersensitive dark matter search found no signs of the substance — yet

    The LZ experiment’s first measurement raises hopes that scientists are closer than ever to finding the source of much of the universe’s mass.

  4. a test of a quantum communications satellite. Various towers and lights are shown against a backdrop of a time-lapsed night sky
    Quantum Physics

    Aliens could send quantum messages to Earth, calculations suggest

    Scientists are developing quantum communications networks on Earth. Aliens, if they exist, could be going further.

  5. illustration of the higgs boson
    Particle Physics

    How physicists are probing the Higgs boson 10 years after its discovery

    The famous particle may point to cracks in the standard model and new physics beyond.

  6. Peter Higgs in front of a photo of a detector at the Large Hadron Collider

    ‘Elusive’ profiles the physicist who predicted the Higgs boson

    Peter Higgs, as Frank Close reveals in his new book, was just one of many physicists who helped crack the mystery of mass’s origins.

  7. illustration of a tetraneutron
    Physics

    Physicists may have finally spotted elusive clusters of four neutrons

    Long-sought clumps of four neutrons called tetraneutrons last less than a billionth of a trillionth of a second, an experiment suggests.

  8. I curved line of falling dominoes, toppling on each other.
    Physics

    How fast a row of dominoes topples depends on friction

    Computer simulations reveal that two types of friction are important in determining how quickly dominoes collapse.

  9. illustration of a vortex ring of light
    Physics

    Scientists created ‘smoke rings’ of light

    A swirling doughnut of light shows that vortex rings aren’t just for fluids anymore.

  10. Part of Google's Sycamore quantum computer
    Quantum Physics

    Quantum physics exponentially improves some types of machine learning

    It wasn’t entirely clear if quantum computers could improve machine learning in practice, but new experiments and theoretical proofs show that it can.

  11. Astronaut Donald Slayton embraces cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov
    Space

    50 years ago, the United States and Soviet Union joined forces for science

    In 1972, U.S. and Soviet leaders agreed to work together on science. Now, Russia’s war in Ukraine is straining that decades-long partnership.

  12. the USS Asheville nuclear submarine, partially above the surface of the ocean
    Particle Physics

    How neutrinos could ensure a submarine’s nuclear fuel isn’t weaponized

    Nuclear submarines could be monitored with the help of neutrinos to ensure that the fuel isn’t diverted to nuclear weapons programs