All Stories by Susan Milius
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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.
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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.
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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.
- 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.
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Trilobites might have invented farming
A close look at fossils raises the possibility that a type of trilobite farmed bacteria.
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Weevils pick on someone their own size
A horned weevil can't pick a real fight with a male too big for him because the bigger one can't get a good grip.
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Why is that wasp helping?
Researchers have found nests of a social insect with helpers that are neither close kin nor slaves.
- Animals
Sibling Desperado: Doomed booby chick turns relentlessly violent
The first known case among nonhuman vertebrates of so-called desperado aggression—relentless attacks against an overwhelming force—may come from the underling chick in nests of brown boobies.
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How the Butterfly Gets Its Spots
The spots on a butterfly wing turn out to be unusually good model systems for a range of disciplines from genetics to behavioral ecology, offering biologists a chance to paint the really big picture of how evolution works.
- Agriculture
Bt Cotton: Yields up in India; pests low in Arizona
Two cotton-growing centers that could hardly differ more—small farms in India and industrial fields in Arizona—provide case studies that show the bright side of a widespread genetically engineered crop.
- Animals
He and she cooperate on anti-aphrodisiacs
Scientists have for the first time identified a chemical that serves as a butterfly anti-aphrodisiac.
- Animals
Better Than Real: Males prefer flower’s scent to female wasp’s
In an extreme case of sex fakery, an orchid produces oddball chemicals to mimic a female wasp's allure so well that males prefer the flower scent to the real thing.
