All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Toucan’s bill gives big chill
Bird’s supersized bill can switch personal air conditioning on and off, new research suggests.
- Life
Web decorating with garbage
Spider webs adorned with decaying food remains attract more attacks, but maybe there’s a defensive trade-off at work.
- Earth
Bird deaths blamed on vitamin deficiency
Shortage of thiamine may have been killing birds in the Baltic and possibly elsewhere for some 25 years.
- Animals
Turtles make sense after all
The odd bodies of turtles add a wrinkle to standard land-dwelling vertebrates.
- Life
Climate change shrinks sheep
Milder winters help small, weak lambs survive but more competition for food slows growth.
- Earth
Dirty snow may bring green burst to mountain peaks
Dust blowing in from distant deserts speeds the melting of snow and may shake up ecosystems on the slopes.
- Life
Beetle philandering doesn’t work out for the ladies
A common idea about the benefits of multiple matings for females turns out to be wrong for seed beetles.
- Health & Medicine
Downside of red-hot chili peppers
In the wild, a culinary kick comes with risks to the plant.
- Life
Hummingbird pulls Top Gun stunts
Male hummingbirds set record for extreme plunges out of the sky.
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No brainer behavior
Messages, memory, maybe even intelligence — botanists wrangle over how far plants can go.
- Life
Tickling apes reveals laughter’s origins
Roots of laughter go back at least 10 to 16 million years, study of romping apes suggests.
- Life
Phony fighters discovered among fig wasps
A newly discovered species of fig wasp has a fraction of dishonest guys with big mouthparts.
