All Stories by Susan Milius
- Life
Mere fear shrinks bird families
Just hearing recordings of predators, in the absence of any real danger, caused sparrows to raise fewer babies.
- Life
Biology’s big bang had a long fuse
The fossil record’s earliest troves of animal life are the result of more than 200 million years of evolution.
- Life
Cretaceous Thanksgiving
A fossilized feathered dinosaur dined on bird not long before its own demise.
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- Life
How both macho and meek persist
Research in voles demonstrates one way that evolution preserves two divergent strategies in a single population.
- Paleontology
DNA suggests North American mammoth species interbred
Supposedly separate types may really have been one.
- Life
Giant beavers had hidden vocal talents
With air passageways in its skull like no other animal known, an extinct outsized rodent may have made sound all its own.
- Life
Python’s heart-restoring elixir works in mice
A chemical brew used by snakes to build cardiac muscle could have medical applications.
- Life
Cause confirmed in bat scourge
White-nose syndrome has devastated bat population in eastern North America.
- Life
Take my enemy, please
The risky business of relocating endangered species might have better outcomes if conservationists shift solitary animals along with their usual territorial rivals.
- Life
When snowpack shrinks, elk can binge on aspen
As winters warm in the Rockies, majestic grazers may be threatening iconic Western tree.
- Life
Penguins may sniff out relatives
A zoo study sees hints of odor-based kin recognition in colony-dwelling birds.
