All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Bones reveal what it was like to grow up dodo
Scientists take a first look at the inside of dodo bones.
- Life
Polluted water: It’s where sea snakes wear black
Reptile counterpart proposed for textbook example of evolution favoring darker moths amid industrial soot.
- Animals
Ticks are here to stay. But scientists are finding ways to outsmart them
Researchers acknowledge that there’s no getting rid of ticks, so they are developing ways to make them less dangerous.
- Life
Light pollution can foil plant-insect hookups, and not just at night
Upsetting nocturnal pollinators has daylight after-effects for Swiss meadow flowers.
- Animals
Newly discovered lymph hydraulics give tunas their fancy moves
There’s still some anatomy to discover in fishes as familiar as bluefin and yellowfin tunas.
- Animals
Ravens pass tests of planning ahead in unnatural tasks
Clever birds may have evolved their own broad powers of apelike thinking about the future.
- Animals
Whales feast when hatcheries release salmon
Whales: “They’re 40 feet long and they’re feeding on fish that are the size of my finger.”
- Plants
Hermaphrodite wildflower has its own battle of the sexes
A new example of sexual conflict shows up in a plant with a troublesome pollinator.
- Animals
The blue wings of this dragonfly may be surprisingly alive
The wings of adult morpho dragonflies show tiny respiratory channels that may support a complex of nanostructures that shine blue.
- Plants
Floral curve test shows what’s great for a moth is not so good for a flower
3-D printed flowers reveal a hidden conflict between a hawk moth and the flowers it pollinates.
- Paleontology
New fossils shake up history of amphibians with no legs
The oldest near-relative of today’s snake-shaped caecilians could have an unexpected backstory.
- Paleontology
Ancient attack marks show ocean predators got scarier
Killer snails and other ocean predators that drill through shells have grown bigger over evolutionary time.
