All Stories by Susan Milius
- 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.
- Agriculture
Carnivorous fish nibble at farming gain
Fish farming may ease pressure on wild stocks overall, but for certain species, farms mean a net loss of fish.
- Animals
One-Two Poison: Scorpion starts with a cheap shot
A South African scorpion economizes as it stings, injecting a simple mix first, followed by a venom that's more complicated to produce.
- Animals
Retaking Flight: Some insects that didn’t use it didn’t lose it
Stick insects may have done what biologists once thought was impossible: lose something as complicated as a wing in the course of evolution but recover it millions of years later.
- Ecosystems
Why didn’t the beetle cross the road?
Beetle populations confined to specific forest areas by roads seem to have lost some of their genetic diversity.
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It’s a tough job, but native bees can do it
An organic watermelon field in California near remnants of wild land still had enough bees of North American species to pollinate a commercial crop, but habitat-poor farms didn't.
- Anthropology
Southern Reindeer Folk
Western scientists make their first expeditions to Mongolia's Tsaatan people, herders who preserve the old ways at the southernmost rim of reindeer territory.
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- Paleontology
Overlooked fossil spread first feathers
A new look at a fossil that had been lying in a drawer in Moscow for nearly 30 years has uncovered the oldest known feathered animal.
- Humans
Science Revalued: Report seeks revived Smithsonian science
A long-awaited report on science at the Smithsonian Institution calls urgently for more funding and also recommends preservation of beseiged materials-research center.
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Ragweed may boom with global warming
An experiment that includes artificially heating plots of tallgrass prairie suggests that global warming could boost growth of ragweed, putting more pollen into the air for allergy sufferers.
- Animals
Homing Lobsters: Fancy navigation, for an invertebrate
Spiny lobsters are the first animals without backbones to pass tests for the orienteering power called true navigation.
