All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Passenger pigeon population had booms and busts
DNA says the birds recovered from hard times — until people came along.
- Animals
In emergencies, fire ants get lots of grips to form rafts
First look inside fire ant architecture shows how lots of leg grips assemble rafts, bridges and balls.
- Animals
Swimming evolved several times in treetop ants
Certain ants living in tropical forest canopies turn out to be fine swimmers.
- Animals
Look beyond pest species to find beauty in cockroaches
A few pest species give the group a bad name, but exotic roaches include an amazing diversity of colors and lifestyles.
- Animals
Winter road salting reshapes next summer’s butterflies
Winter road salt treatments boost sodium in roadside plants and alter development for monarch butterflies.
- Life
Hatcheries’ metal can disrupt steelhead magnetic sense
Growing up in magnetic fields distorted by pipes and electronics confounds young fish’s inherited map sense.
- Animals
Why tree-hugger koalas are cool
Drooping against bark during a heat wave could save koalas from overheating.
- Animals
Reef fish get riled when intruders glow red
A male fairy wrasse gets feisty when he can see a rival’s colorful fluorescent patches.
- Life
Drab female birds had more colorful evolution
Males weren’t the main players in evolution of sex differences in avian plumage.
- Life
Flightless birds’ history upset by ancient DNA
The closest known relatives of New Zealand’s small, flightless kiwis were Madagascar’s elephant birds, so ancestors must have done some flying rather than just drifting with continents.
- Animals
For upside-down sloths, what goes down can’t come up
Upside-down sloths have to hold their organs up and their food down.
- Animals
Everyday electronics may upset birds’ compass
Weak electromagnetic waves, coming from normal university activities, interfere with European robins’ migratory orientation.
