Susan Milius

Susan Milius

Life Sciences Writer

Life sciences writer Susan Milius has been writing about botany, zoology and ecology for Science News since the last millennium. She worked at diverse publications before breaking into science writing and editing. After stints on the staffs of The Scientist, Science, International Wildlife and United Press International, she joined Science News. Three of Susan's articles have been selected to appear in editions of The Best American Science Writing.

All Stories by Susan Milius

  1. Animals

    Vampire bats don’t learn from bad lunch

    For the first time, a mammal has flunked a controlled test for developing a food aversion after getting sick just once, and that unusual creature is the common vampire bat.

  2. Wasps: Mom doesn’t like you best

    Female wasps that found a colony together show no favoritism toward their own offspring when the adults feed larvae.

  3. Excuse me, dear, which octopus are you?

    Male blue-ringed octopuses get pretty far along in their courtship before they determine whether their partner is a female.

  4. How butterflies can eat cyanide

    Some newly recognized chemical wizardry lets some Heliconius caterpillars thrive on leaves that defend themselves with cyanide.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Scarce-Banana Scare—But don’t kiss that banana good-bye yet

    Headlines have been blaring that the banana will be extinct within 10 years but crop specialists say that’s not likely. The furor has called attention, however, to a problem of worldwide banana supply and to the possibility that we’ll be peeling things a little different in 2013. The fuss started with the Jan. 18 New […]

  6. Animals

    Flowers, not flirting, make sexes differ

    Thanks to lucky circumstances, bird researchers find rare evidence that food, not sex appeal, makes some male and female hummingbirds look different.

  7. Ecosystems

    After Invasions: Can an ant takeover change the rules?

    A rare before-and-after study of a takeover by an invasive ant species shows the interloper quickly disassembling the basic rules of the invaded community.

  8. Good taste in men linked to colon risks

    Men with exceptionally sensitive powers of taste may face extra health risks, such as colon cancer.

  9. Predators shape river world top-down

    Hunting and no-hunting zones allow a rare test of the much-debated proposal that big carnivores shape their ecosystems from the top down.

  10. Why did the turtle cross the road?

    A survey of painted turtles that perished while trying to cross a highway suggests that the freshwater species need more dry land than expected.

  11. Cult Anthrax: Stored slime reveals why release went undetected

    A U.S. anthrax geneticist tells the story behind his work figuring out how Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo released anthrax into Tokyo but people didn't notice anything except a nasty smell.

  12. Ecosystems

    Lab ecosystems show signs of evolving

    An ambitious test of group selection considers whether natural selection can act on whole ecosystems as evolutionary units.