All Stories by Susan Milius
- Genetics
To make female pill bugs, just add bacterial genes
Genes from Wolbachia bacteria infiltrated pill bugs and now make genetic males female.
- Animals
New case emerging for Culex mosquito as unexpected Zika spreader
The much-debated proposal that a Culex mosquito could help spread Zika gets some international support.
- Life
Aneil Agrawal unites math and mess
Evolutionary geneticist Aneil Agrawal is equally at home with real and hypothetical fruit flies.
- Ecosystems
Shrinking sea ice threatens natural highways for caribou, plants
As Arctic sea ice declines, Peary caribou or plants risk getting stranded when their frozen highways thaw.
- Animals
Frog-hunting bats have ‘cocktail party effect’ workaround
Test with robotic frogs finds bats that hunt amphibians switch their attention to other clues if outside noise masks the mating chorus.
- 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.
