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.
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All Stories by Susan Milius
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Ecosystems
Plants hitch rides with box turtles
In the pine rocklands of southern Florida, at least nine plant species find new homes by traveling through a turtle's gut.
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Plants
Sunflower genes don’t fit pattern
Comparison between crop and wild sunflower genes suggests that the plant followed an easy route to domestication.
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Animals
Male butterflies are driven to drink
Monarch butterflies that winter in California, especially males that had a demanding day, search out dewdrops as a water source.
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Migration may reawaken Lyme disease
Lyme disease can hide in healthy-looking birds until the stress of migration drives it into a potentially infectious state.
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Ecosystems
Tougher Weeds? Borrowed gene helps wild sunflower
Feeding concerns about developing superweeds, a test of sunflowers shows for the first time that a biologically engineered gene moving from a crop can give an advantage to wild relatives under naturalistic conditions.
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Humans
R&D budget should ease biomed envy
President Clinton's science budget for 2001 proposes to narrow a gap that's yawned in recent years between lusher funding for biomedicine and leaner support for the physical sciences.
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Earth
Just how much do U.S. roads matter?
A Harvard researcher calculates that roads directly influence the ecology of a fifth of U.S. land area.
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Ecosystems
Males live longer with all-year mating
Male butterflies live longer in Madeira, where females are available year-round, than in Sweden, where females mature in one burst.
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Plants
Why tulips can’t dance
An elliptical stem gives daffodils an unusual liveliness in the wind compared with tulips.
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Animals
When Ants Squeak
In the past 20 years, researchers studying sound communication in ants have discovered a sort of ant-ernet, zinging with messages about lost relatives, great food, free rides for hitchhikers, caterpillars in search of ant partners, and impending doom.
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Animals
Bees log flight distances, train with maps
After decades of work, scientists crack two problems of how bees navigate: reading bee odometers and mapping training flights.
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Ecosystems
Pfiesteria’s Bite: Microbe may kill fish by skinning, not poisoning
At least one kind of Pfiesteria—accused of killing fish and threatening human health—does not produce a toxin but kills by eating holes in fish's skin, some researchers say.