All Stories by Susan Milius
- Life
Rooting for swarm intelligence in plants
Researchers argue for a type of vegetative group decision making usually associated with humans and social animals, and go out on a limb by also proposing that information may be transmitted electrically.
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- Life
Getting dissed could be partly genetic
In marmot social networks, victimization may be to some degree heritable.
- Life
Mammal size maxed out after dinos’ demise
Opening new ecological niches led to a worldwide boom in size, up to a point.
- Animals
Island orangs descend from small group
Bornean apes went through a genetic bottleneck when isolated during an ancient glaciation.
- Animals
Cats drink using lap-and-gulp trick
Felines imbibe by pulling up a column of fluid and then snatching a bit of it before it splashes back down.
- Animals
Acidification may halve coral class of 2050
Already shown to be a threat to established reefs, experiments show that changing ocean chemistry also threatens the establishment and survival of larvae.
- Life
Will groom for snuggles
Sooty mangabey and vervet monkey mothers charge a price, dictated by market forces, that other females must pay to touch their babies.
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- Animals
Lady MacBee
In one stingless Brazilian species, young queens shut out of succession in their own hives often usurp another colony’s throne.
- Life
Climate changes, and there goes the neighborhood
The ranges of rattlesnakes and voles are likely to shift drastically with warming, analyses of past changes suggest.
- Life
Pterosaurs might have soared 10,000 miles nonstop
Flight analysis suggests ancient reptiles were record setters.
