All Stories by Susan Milius
- 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.
- Animals
Woodpecker beaks divulge shock-absorbing properties
Scales, sutures and porosity help the birds hammer without going stupid.
- Animals
Narwhal has the strangest tooth in the sea
Sometimes called the unicorn of the sea, the male narwhal’s tusk is actually a tooth. Narwhals detect changes in water salinity using only these tusks, a new study finds.
- Animals
How to milk a naked mole-rat
For the sake of science, Olav Oftedal has milked bats, bears and a lot of other mammals. But a naked mole-rat was something new.
- Animals
Bird mimicry lets hustlers keep cheating
Drongos are false alarm specialists that borrow other species’ warning sounds and freshen up their fraud.
- Animals
Abandoned frog eggs can hatch early
If their father doesn’t keep them hydrated, frog embryos react by hatching early.
- Animals
Frustrated fish get feisty
Smaller rainbow trout become more aggressive towards bigger fish when they don’t their usual treats.
- Animals
Submariners’ ‘bio-duck’ is probably a whale
First acoustic tags on Antarctic minke whales suggest the marine mammals are the long-sought source of the mysterious bio-duck sound.
- Life
The name of the fungus
A rebellion has broken out against the traditional way of naming species in the peculiar, shape-shifting world of fungi.
