All Stories by Susan Milius
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Spying on Plant Defenses: Insects monitor toxin ramp-up
A common caterpillar can sense when a plant is gearing up to manufacture insecticidal toxins and respond by starting up its own detoxification system.
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Tests revise image of kangaroo rats
An ecological study of kangaroo rats has revised thinking about how these desert dwellers cope with their stressful home.
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Chicken Rank: Hen social position shifts egg hormones
A study of leghorn chickens has linked hormone concentrations in a hen's eggs to her rank in the pecking order.
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Do oxpeckers help or mostly just freeload?
A textbook example of mutualism—birds that ride around picking ticks off big African mammals—may not be mutually beneficial at all.
- Animals
That special wax lasts after courtship
Sandpipers' special wax for their wings during the breeding season may have less to do with courting a mate and more to do with sitting on eggs.
- Animals
The truth is, frogs bluff and crabs cheat
Two research teams say they've caught wild animals bluffing, only the second and third examples (outside of primate antics) ever recorded.
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Gene found for big, firm sheep rumps
Scientists have found the gene that gives sheep unusually big, muscular bottoms.
- Animals
Music without Borders
When birds trill and whales woo-oo, we call it singing. Are we serious?
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Colossal study shows amphibian woes
The largest amphibian data set ever crunched—936 populations in 37 countries—confirms global declines.
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One-gene change makes mice neurotic
Researchers have engineered a strain of stressed-out mice by knocking out one gene.
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Good guys and bad guys share tactics
A microbial odd couple—the brucellosis pathogen and a nitrogen-fixer for plants—need the same gene to settle into their hosts long-term.
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How whales, dolphins, seals dive so deep
The blue whale, bottlenose dolphin, Weddell seal, and elephant seal cut diving energy costs 10 to 50 percent by simply gliding downward.
