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

    Antimatter could travel by truck, a test with protons shows

    A special particle trap designed to fit in a truck let researchers haul 70 protons across the CERN campus. Antiprotons may be next.

  2. Astronomy

    A star winked out of sight. Could it be a ‘failed supernova’? 

    The dramatic dimming of a star in the nearby Andromeda galaxy could mark the birth of a black hole.

  3. Planetary Science

    50 years ago, scientists found a new moon orbiting Jupiter

    In 1974, astronomers discovered Jupiter’s 13th moon. They now know of at least 95 moons and have launched missions to study some up close.

  4. Space

    A near-Earth asteroid offers clues to one dark matter theory 

    Data from the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu place a ceiling on the strength of a hypothetical fifth force that could explain dark matter’s origins.

  5. Tech

    Tech companies want small nuclear reactors. Here’s how they’d work 

    To fuel AI’s insatiable energy appetite, tech companies are going big on small nuclear reactors.

  6. Physics

    Radioactive beams give a real-time view of cancer treatment in mice

    This first successful treatment of tumors with radioactive ion beams could one day lead to treating human patients’ tumors with millimeter precision.

  7. Artificial Intelligence

    The discovery of tools key to machine learning wins the 2024 physics Nobel

    John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton used tools from physics to develop data analysis methods that underlie machine learning.

  8. Physics

    Thunderstorms churn up a ‘boiling pot’ of gamma rays 

    A thunderstorm seen in gamma-ray vision is a complex, frenetic lightshow when viewed from above the clouds.

  9. Particle Physics

    Physicists just discovered the rarest particle decay ever

    The “golden channel” decay of subatomic particles called kaons could break or confirm the standard model of particle physics.

  10. Quantum Physics

    Why this physicist is bringing thermodynamics to the quantum age

    Like a steampunk fantasy-world, which pairs high-tech with an old-timey setting, Nicole Yunger Halpern melds old and new science.

  11. Particle Physics

    A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations

    Cosmological data suggest unexpected masses for neutrinos, including the possibility of zero or negative mass.

  12. Particle Physics

    The Large Hadron Collider exposes quarks’ quantum entanglement

    Top quarks and antiquarks produced in the Large Hadron Collider are entangled, a study shows.