All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
When you’re happy and you show it, dogs know it
A new test using pictures of halves of human faces challenges dogs’ abilities to read people’s emotions.
- Ecosystems
Noise made by humans can be bad news for animals
Animals live in a world of sounds. Clever experiments are finally teasing out how human-made noise can cause dangerous distractions.
- Plants
Fairly bad pitcher traps triumph in the end
Carnivorous pitcher plant traps rarely catch much, but their lackadaisical hunting turns out not to be so lame after all.
- Ecosystems
Termite mound paradises help buffer dry land against climate change
Landscapes dotted by Africa’s great termite mounds look on the verge of turning into desert but are, in fact, more resilient.
- Animals
Cockroach personalities can speed or slow group decisions
The mix of temperaments in an alarmed cluster of cockroaches changes how quickly they make group decisions.
- Neuroscience
Chicks show left-to-right number bias
Recently hatched chicks may have their own version of the left-to-right mental number line.
- Animals
Highway bridge noise disturbs fish’s hearing
In the lab, blacktail shiners had trouble hearing courtship growls over Alabama bridge traffic recordings.
- Animals
Chameleon tongue power underestimated
A South African chameleon species can shoot its tongue with up to 41,000 watts of power per kilogram of muscle involved, a new study finds.
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- Animals
Cone snail deploys insulin to slow speedy prey
Fish-hunting cone snails turns insulin into a weapon that drops their prey’s blood sugar and eases capture.
- Plants
Tricky pitcher plants lure ants into a false sense of security
Carnivorous pitcher plants exploit social lives of ants as scouts escape and inadvertently lead nest mates to death trap.
- Animals
Amazonian bird may act the part of its hairy caterpillar disguise
A rare view of a baby cinereous mourner feeds debate over whether the bird both looks and acts the part of a toxic hairy caterpillar as defense against predators.
