Life sciences writer Susan Milius has been writing about botany, zoology and ecology for Science News since the last millennium. She worked at diverse publications before breaking into science writing and editing. After stints on the staffs of The Scientist, Science, International Wildlife and United Press International, she joined Science News. Three of Susan's articles have been selected to appear in editions of The Best American Science Writing.
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All Stories by Susan Milius
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Plants
This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers
With only four known species, Langsdorffia are thieves stripped down to their essentials.
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Animals
How Yellowstone wolves got their own Ancestry.com page
Since the wolves’ reintroduction to the park, 25 years of devoted watching has chronicled bold moves, big fights and lots of puppies.
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Animals
Larvaceans’ underwater ‘snot palaces’ boast elaborate plumbing
Mucus houses have valves and ducts galore that help giant larvaceans extract food from seawater.
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Life
More ‘murder hornets’ are turning up. Here’s what you need to know
Two more specimens of the world’s largest hornet have just been found in North America.
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Life
Pollen-deprived bumblebees may speed up plant blooming by biting leaves
In a pollen shortage, some bees nick holes in tomato leaves that accelerate flowering, and pollen production, by weeks.
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Life
Why otters ‘juggle’ rocks is still a mystery
Shuffling pebbles really fast looks as if it should boost otters’ dexterity, but a new study didn’t find a link.
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Animals
Why mammals like elephants and armadillos might get drunk easily
Differences in a gene for breaking down alcohol could help explain which mammals get tipsy.
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Animals
Earthy funk lures tiny creatures to eat and spread bacterial spores
Genes that cue spore growth also kick up a scent that draws in springtails.
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Animals
The ‘insect apocalypse’ is more complicated than it sounds
Freshwater arthropods trended upward, while terrestrial ones declined. But the study’s decades of data are spotty.
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Animals
Insects’ extreme farming methods offer us lessons to learn and oddities to avoid
Insects invented agriculture long before humans did. Can we learn anything from them?
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Life
Algae use flagella to trot, gallop and move with gaits all their own
Single-celled microalgae, with no brains, can coordinate their “limbs” into a trot or fancier gait.
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Life
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Tailored microbes defend bees with a gene-silencing process called RNA interference that takes on viruses or mites.