All Stories by Susan Milius
- Earth
Bt corn pollen can hurt monarchs
A second test of a strain of corn genetically engineered to make its own insecticide finds potential for harm to monarch butterfly caterpillars.
- Ecosystems
Virtual skylarks suffer weed shortfall
A new mathematical model raises the concern that switching to transgenic herbicide-tolerant crops could deprive birds of weed seeds.
- Animals
Sexual conflict pushes species making
A novel comparison of 25 pairs of insect lineages finds that sexual conflict plays more of a role in making new species than scientists had realized.
- Plants
Emergency Gardening
High-tech tissue culture is helping some ultrarare plants finally have sprouts of their own.
- Animals
Why do two-sex geckos triumph?
Just the smell of an invasive species of gecko suppresses egg laying and subdues aggression in a resident.
- Animals
Maybe what Polly wants is a new toy
Changing the toys in a parrot's cage may ease the bird's tendency to fear new things.
- Animals
Some female birds prefer losers
When a female Japanese quail watches two males clash, she tends to prefer the loser.
- Animals
The secret appetite of cleaner wrasses
The little reef fish that nibble parasites off bigger fish that stop by for service actually prefer to nibble the customers.
- Animals
City Song: Birds sing higher near urban traffic
Birds in noisier city spots tend to sing at a higher pitch than do members of the same species in quieter neighborhoods.
- Earth
Double Trees: City trees grow bigger than country cousins
Clones of an Eastern cottonwood grow twice as well in the New York metropolitan sprawl as in rural New York State.
- Animals
Killer sex, literally
Videotapes of yellow garden spiders show that if a female doesn't murder her mate, he'll expire during sex anyway.
- Plants
Crop genes diffuse in seedy ways
A study of sugar beets in France suggests that genes may escape to wild relatives through seeds accidentally transported by humans rather than through drifting pollen.
