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

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. ‘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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Physics

    Scientists created ‘smoke rings’ of light

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

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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

  11. Computing

    The world’s fastest supercomputer just broke the exascale barrier

    The Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee clocked in at more than 1.1 quintillion calculations per second.

  12. Chemistry

    Scientists made a Möbius strip out of a tiny carbon nanobelt

    A twisted belt of carbon atoms joins carbon nanotubes and buckyballs in the list of carbon structures scientists can create.