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. photo of a vacuum chamber
    Physics

    Electrons are extremely round, a new measurement confirms

    The near-perfect roundness deepens the mystery behind how the universe came to be filled with matter as opposed to antimatter.

  2. An illustration of a pulsar.
    Astronomy

    A newfound gravitational wave ‘hum’ may be from the universe’s biggest black holes

    Scientists reported evidence for a new class of gravitational waves, likely created by merging supermassive black holes.

  3. Illustration of a red and yellow key with bubbles around the handle and the bit. A greenish bubble also encircles the entire key and blue gear shapes appear in the background.
    Quantum Physics

    Quantum computers could break the internet. Here’s how to save it

    Today's encryption schemes will be vulnerable to future quantum computers, but new algorithms and a quantum internet could help.

  4. A headshot of theoretical physicist Julian Muñoz against a brightly lit backdrop
    Physics

    Julian Muñoz has a ‘ruler’ that could size up the early universe

    The measurement tool could lay out a distance scale for cosmic dawn —and offer clues to the nature of dark matter.

  5. An image of photosynthetic bacteria appears in shades of blue, purple and green on a black background.
    Chemistry

    One photon is all it takes to kick off photosynthesis

    A single particle of light is the spark that begins the process of turning light to chemical energy in photosynthetic bacteria, a new study confirms.

  6. A shape called a spectre covers an infinite plane with some of them a light green connected to a dark green scattered amongst white spectres.
    Math

    A ‘vampire einstein’ tile outdoes mathematicians’ latest feat

    A newfound shape covers an infinite plane with a pattern that doesn’t repeat and without mirror images of the shape.

  7. An overhead photo of the nuclear physics facility ISOLDE at CERN.
    Physics

    Measurements of a key radioactive decay nudge a nuclear clock closer to reality

    In a step toward building a nuclear clock, scientists measured light emitted when a special type of thorium nucleus decayed.

  8. illustration of red and green squiggle lines passing through several grids
    Quantum Physics

    Quantum computers braided ‘anyons,’ long-sought quasiparticles with memory

    Particle-like quantum states called non-abelian anyons remember being swapped and could be useful for protecting information in quantum computers.

  9. A photo of someone in a blue jacket with their upper body through the sunroof of a car. There is a ring of several small microphones surrounding them.
    Physics

    Science explains why shouting into the wind seems futile

    Sending a sound upwind, against the flow of air, makes the sound louder due to an acoustical effect called convective amplification. Sound sent downwind is quieter.

  10. A huge tangle of worms on a black backdrop
    Physics

    These worms can escape tangled blobs in an instant. Here’s how

    Tangled masses of California blackworms form over minutes but untangle in tens of milliseconds. Now scientists know how.

  11. A close up photo of a tiny transparent rectangle sitting on the tip of a person's finger.
    Quantum Physics

    A sapphire Schrödinger’s cat shows that quantum effects can scale up

    The atoms in a piece of sapphire oscillate in two directions at once, a mimic of the hypothetically dead-and-alive feline.

  12. Two photos of the same black hole in M87 side by side. The image on the left is the original and appears to be a fuzzy black center with a ring of orange around it. The image on the right is similar but clearly a dark circle in the middle with an orange ring around it.
    Astronomy

    The first black hole portrait got sharper thanks to machine learning

    A machine learning technique filled in data gaps in the image of M87’s black hole, resulting in a thinner ring.