All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Female guppies with bigger brains pick more attractive guys
A larger-brained female guppy may pick primo males, but all that mental machinery costs her in other ways.
- Animals
How one enslaving wasp eats through another
A wasp that forces oaks to grow a gall gets tricked into digging an escape tunnel for its killers.
- Climate
Changing climate could worsen foods’ nutrition
Climate change could aggravate hidden hunger by sapping micronutrients from soils and plants, reducing nutrition in wheat, rice and other crops.
- Neuroscience
Scratching is catching in mice
Contagious itching spreads by sight mouse-to-mouse, and scientists have identified brain structures behind the phenomenon.
- Animals
Wild elephants clock shortest shut-eye recorded for mammals
Among mammals, wild elephants may need the least amount of sleep, new measurements suggest.
- Animals
Score! Bumblebees see how to sink ball in goal, then do it better
A first lesson in six-legged soccer tests bumblebees’ ability to learn.
- Animals
Coconut crab pinches like a lion, eats like a dumpster diver
Coconut crabs use their surprisingly powerful claw for more than cracking coconuts.
- Climate
Desert songbirds increasingly at risk of dehydration
With no efforts to curb climate warming, hot spots in the U.S. Southwest could turn uninhabitable for some songbirds.
- Climate
Hot nests, not vanishing males, are bigger sea turtle threat
Climate change overheating sea turtle nestlings may be a greater danger than temperature-induced shifts in their sex ratios.
- Animals
What gives frog tongues the gift of grab
Here’s what puts the grip in a frog’s high-speed strike: quick-change saliva and a tongue softer than a marshmallow.
- Plants
Big genetics study blazes path for bringing back tomato flavor
Combining taste tests with genetics suggests what makes heirloom varieties tastier than mass-market tomatoes.
- Life
Some lucky birds escaped dino doomsday
Dino doomsday took out early birds too, but a lucky few survived.
