All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Be careful what you say around jumping spiders
Sensitive leg hairs may let jumping spiders hear sounds through the air at much greater distances than researchers imagined.
- Animals
Bees take longer to learn floral odors polluted by vehicle fumes
Car and truck exhaust mingling with a floral scent can slow down the important process of honeybees learning the fragrance of a flower.
- Animals
Eels may not take most direct route in epic ocean-crossing spawning runs
European eels’ epic ocean migrations to spawn may include more peculiar routes and timing than thought.
- Animals
Extreme bird nests bring comforts and catastrophe
Extreme bird nests of Southern Africa’s weaverbirds offer condo living in tough temperatures.
- 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.
