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. Quantum Physics

    Quantum entanglement makes quantum communication even more secure

    Bell tests proved that quantum mechanics really is “spooky.” Now they’ve made quantum communication even more hacker-proof.

  2. Physics

    A new dark matter experiment quashed earlier hints of new particles

    Unlike its earlier incarnation, the XENONnT detector found no evidence of extra blips that scientists had hoped indicated new physics.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. ‘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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. Physics

    Scientists created ‘smoke rings’ of light

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

  12. 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.