All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Hawaiian crows ace tool-user test
The almost-extinct Hawaiian crow joins the small, select flock of birds shown to use sticks tools routinely and well to wiggle bits of food out of crevices.
- Paleontology
Preteen tetrapods identified by bone scans
Roughly 360 million years ago, young tetrapods may have schooled together during prolonged years as juveniles in the water.
- Animals
Dwarf lemurs don’t agree on sleep
Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs’ surprising hibernation-sleep doesn’t show up in ground-hibernating relatives.
- Animals
In drought, zebra finches wring water from their own fat
A zebra finch with no water or food can keep itself hydrated by metabolizing body fat.
- Health & Medicine
Mosquito moms can pass Zika to offspring
In the lab, Zika virus can pass from a female mosquito to her eggs, suggesting how infections can flare up again after adult insects dwindle.
- Animals
Warm-up benefit could explain morning birdsong
Even birds sing better after vocal warm-up, and an evolutionary arms race among rivals might have led to the intensity of the dawn chorus.
- Plants
How a tomato plant foils a dreaded vampire vine
Tomatoes can foil a dodder plant attack by getting scared and scabbing over.
- Animals
Ways to beat heat have hidden costs for birds
Birds that look as if they’re coping with heat waves and climate change may actually be on a downward slide, with underappreciated disadvantages of panting and seeking shade.
- Animals
Bird nest riddle: Which shape came first?
Today’s simple cup-shaped songbird nests look as if they just had to have evolved before roofed nests. But that could be backward.
- Health & Medicine
When it comes to antimicrobial resistance, watch out for wildlife
Focusing on antimicrobial resistance in hospitals and farms misses a big and not well understood part of the issue: wildlife.
- Life
Two stationary kinds of bacteria can move when mixed
Bacteria stuck when alone on a dry surface get moving — and get faster — when they evolve together.
- Life
For bacteria, assassination can breed cooperation
Cholera bacteria stabbing each other can encourage the evolution of cooperation.
