All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Mixing Genes: Bird immigrants make unexpected differences
A pair of decades-long studies of birds moving into other birds' neighborhoods show that immigration can have a quirkier effect than predicted by the usual textbook view.
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Plants: Importance of being economic
The pulse of the real estate market in a given area turns out to be a powerful indicator of how many exotic plant species have invaded the neighborhood.
- Ecosystems
Fallout Feast: Vent crabs survive on victims of plume
Researchers in Taiwan propose an explanation for how so many crabs can survive at shallow-water hydrothermal vents.
- Animals
Paper wasps object to dishonest face spots
Female wasps with dishonest faces, created by researchers who altered the wasps' natural status spots, have to cope with extra aggression.
- Animals
Song Fights
Birds settle many of their disputes by some rough-and-tough singing bouts, and recording equipment now lets researchers pick a song fight, too.
- Animals
Grow-Slow Potion: Pheromone keeps bee youngsters youthful
Researchers have identified a compound made by the senior workers in a honeybee colony that prolongs the time that teenage bees stay home babysitting.
- Animals
Color at Night: Geckos can distinguish hues by dim moonlight
The first vertebrate to ace tests of color vision at low light levels—tests that people flunk—is an African gecko.
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Nightlife: Marsupial meets mistletoe
A tiny marsupial in Argentina turns out to disperse mistletoe seeds, a job once presumed to be for the birds.
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Great tits inherit egg spots from mom
An unusual study of eggshell spots suggests that there may be a gene for spottiness on the great tit's female sex chromosome.
- Plants
Botany under the Mistletoe
Twisters, spitters, and other flowery thoughts for romantic moments.
- Animals
Birds may inherit their taste for the town
Tests switching cliff swallow nestlings to colonies of different sizes suggest the birds inherit their preference for group size.
- Earth
Wafting pesticides taint far-flung frogs
Agricultural pesticides blowing into California's wilderness areas have played a role in mysterious declines in frog populations.
