Gemma Conroy
I’m a freelance science journalist based in Sydney, Australia.
I have written stories for Scientific American, New Scientist, Smithsonian, Nature, Hakai Magazine, Audubon, Australian Geographic, ScienceAlert, Australian Popular Science, Cosmos among other outlets.
I have also worked as a staff reporter for ABC Science and Nature Index, a supplement in the journal Nature.
My work has been featured in The Best Australian Science Writing 2020 anthology.
I (sporadically) tweet at @gvconroy.
Contact me:
g.conroy.journo@gmail.com
Selected work
‘These beasts are made for walking’: Woolly mammoth took enough steps to nearly circle the Earth twice
If you found yourself standing in Alaska during the last ice age, chances are you would meet a woolly mammoth on the move…
ABC Science, August 2021 →
How does COVID-19 affect the brain? Here’s what we know so far
At the beginning of 2020, Carol Andersen was busy enjoying life. The 67-year-old had a job she loved in the results department of a clinical lab and was looking forward…
ABC Science, August 2021 →
A geologist brought home some ancient rock 20 years ago. She may have stumbled on the world’s oldest animal fossil
Two decades ago, geologist Elizabeth Turner set out to explore the ancient reefs locked away in the Mackenzie Mountains in north-west Canada. Her heart was set on understanding how photosynthetic…
ABC Science, July 2021 →
Astronomers capture image of a second black hole. And it’s very different to the first one
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope made history when it captured the very first image of a supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy. Now, it has zoomed in on…
ABC Science, July 2021 →
Most people have side effects after the second Pfizer jab. Here’s why
When Rachael McGuire rolled up her sleeve to get her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in April, she went home with a sore arm and spent the evening feeling…
ABC Science, July 2021 →
The Lambda coronavirus variant has arrived in Australia. Here’s what we know so far
We’ve seen the Alpha, Kappa and Delta variants cross our borders, but it turns out another strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 has reached our shores. The variant, named…
ABC Science, July 2021 →
Scientists opened a 5,000-year-old cold case. They found the roots of the Black Death
Around 5,000 years ago in Northern Europe, a young man fell ill and died. It turns out that the man had been infected by the oldest strain of Yersinia pestis…
ABC Science, June 2021 →
‘The sharks basically just disappeared overnight’: Scientists have found a mysterious ancient extinction event
When palaeobiologist Elizabeth Sibert set out to build a record of fish and shark populations over millions of years, she didn’t expect to be solving a mysterious disappearance case. And…
ABC Science, June 2021 →
What makes some COVID-19 variants more contagious than others?
The virus that causes COVID-19 is evolving, with new and more infectious variants taking hold. That has now been extended for at least another seven days in Melbourne. But what…
ABC Science, June 2021 →
Believers in QAnon and other conspiracy theories reveal how they climbed out of the rabbit hole
For two years, Jitarth Jadeja spent most of his time in the darkest corners of the web reading about conspiracy theories. Mr Jadeja, 33, was an avid follower of QAnon…
ABC Science, May 2021 →
Ancient vs modern poo study shows how much our gut microbiomes have changed — and mostly not for the good
A lot has changed for humans over the past 2,000 years. And it turns out our poo has also changed. A new study has found that our gut bugs are…
ABC Science, May 2021 →
Oldest known burial site in Africa uncovered by archaeologists
Just over 78,000 years ago, a three-year-old child was laid to rest in a small pit at the entrance of Panga ya Saidi, a leafy cave located 15 kilometres from…
ABC Science, May 2021 →
Graveyards are surprising hotspots for biodiversity
Two weeks after the spring equinox, farmers in China’s Hebei province pay a visit to deceased loved ones in tiny graveyards among the vast wheat fields to mark Qingming Jie,…
Scientific American, February 2021 →
How COVID-19 could make science kinder
In March 2020, several journal publishers introduced fast-tracked peer review for papers related to COVID-19, cutting the time from submission to publication in half. While concerns over the move’s impact on research quality were…
Nature Index, February 2021 →
Can a cold water bath save the Great Barrier Reef?
In early 2020, Australia was in the grip of its second hottest summer on record. As catastrophic bush fires turned the sky black, sea temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef…
Hakai Magazine, February 2021 →
Rise of the zombie ants
When Jean-François Doherty first dipped into research papers on parasitic host-manipulation five years ago, he felt as though he was reading science fiction. The technical jargon was peppered with colourful…
Nature Index, January 2021 →
Three reasons to share your research failures
Science is often a one step forward, two steps back process, but most journals and researchers are reluctant to air the failures and drawbacks that precede success. That’s where the new Journal of…
Nature Index, September 2020 →
Post-pandemic, fieldwork faces a remote future
When Richard Primack, a biologist at Boston University in Massachusetts, realised that many of his students would be unable to learn new fieldwork skills this year, he switched to teaching…
Nature Index, August 2020 →
These materials scientists are a ‘power couple’ in the physical sciences
Two decades ago, Takashi Taniguchi had one goal: to produce a flawless piece of cubic boron nitride (c-BN), an ultra-hard material with a similar crystal structure to diamond, so he…
Nature Index, May 2020 →
What’s wrong with the h-index, according to its inventor
Love it or hate it, the h-index has become one of the most widely used metrics in academia for measuring the productivity and impact of researchers. But when Jorge Hirsch…
Nature Index, March 2020 →
Front line scientists call for mental health support in the wake of catastrophic ecosystem loss
When ecologist Daniella Teixeira visited her bushfire-ravaged study site on Kangaroo Island, South Australia in February this year, the scale of the damage hit her hard. Teixeira, an ecologist at…
Nature Index, March 2020 →
Struggling to win grants? Here’s how to crowdfund your research
Writing grant proposals is often a painstaking and time-consuming task for researchers, particularly when the rejection letters begin to pile up. A 2013 study on grant proposals submitted to Australia’s…
Nature Index, March 2020 →
Scientists reveal what they learnt from their biggest mistakes
Be it a botched experiment or a coding error, mistakes are easily made but harder to handle, particularly if they find their way into a published paper. Although retracting a…
Nature Index, March 2020 →
Overheated reefs are caught in a vicious carbon cycle
Ohad Peleg spent his childhood snorkeling among lush seaweed forests in the cool Mediterranean Sea off the Israeli coast. When he dives there today, though, he sees a barren seascape…
Hakai Magazine, March 2020 →
Why sexual harassment needs tougher punishment
Funding agencies should cut off grant money to researchers who have been found guilty of sexual misconduct. That’s one of the recommendations from a panel of 21 US-based scientists calling…
Nature Index, December 2019 →
‘Ecological grief’ grips scientists witnessing Great Barrier Reef’s decline
When Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral-reef system, was hit by record-breaking marine heat waves that bleached two-thirds of it in 2016 and 2017, many researchers were left…
Nature, September 2019 →
Exotic parrot colonies are flourishing across the country
On a cold, windy day in Chicago eight years ago, Jennifer Uehling strolled through Hyde Park, a picturesque neighborhood known for its bookstores, museums, and grand historical homes. The scenery…
Audubon, June 2019 →
Dinosaur bones shimmering with opal reveal a new species in Australia
Three decades ago, opal miner Bob Foster was getting frustrated while digging around in his mining field just outside of Lightning Ridge, a dust-swept town in outback New South Wales…
Smithsonian Magazine, June 2019 →
Seabird poop speeds up coral growth
When marine biologist Candida Savage was collecting samples of nitrogen and other nutrients in the coastal waters of Fiji, she was jarred by what she found at one horseshoe-shaped coral…
Scientific American, April 2019 →
Stopping marine roadkill
When Vanessa Pirotta is surveying whales in the frigid water off Antarctica, the traffic-packed roads back home are far from her mind. “You see absolutely nothing out there at times,”…
Hakai Magazine, February 2019 →
Seagrass safeguards human history
From storing carbon to guarding against ocean acidification, seagrass is fundamental to keeping ocean ecosystems in balance. But new research shows that seagrass meadows play another crucial, if overlooked, role…
Hakai Magazine, January 2019 →
Warming waters could make sharks “right-handed”—and deadlier
Rising ocean temperatures and acidification are known to be altering the way fish grow and reproduce—and now research shows these climate change side-effects may also change how fish think and…
Scientific American, December 2019 →
150 years of shifting global fishing
For thousands of years, seafood has sustained communities, livelihoods, and economies across the world. In ancient Rome, wealthy entrepreneurs snapped up beachfront property and built elaborate fish farms. In 15th-century…
Hakai Magazine, August 2018 →
We have unrealistic beauty standards for coral, too
Vibrant images of coral reefs are popular features in glossy travel magazines. This spiraling kaleidoscope of neon corals leads many to believe that “pretty” must also mean “healthy.” But according…