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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Animals
This honeybee parasite may be more of a fat stealer than a bloodsucker
Inventing decoy bee larvae prompts a back-to-basics rethink of a mite ominously named Varroa destructor.
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Animals
How worm blobs behave like a liquid and a solid
Blobs of worms flow like a fluid, plop like a solid and fascinate scientists.
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Animals
Green darner dragonflies migrate a bit like monarch butterflies
Some dragonflies do a north-south annual migration that takes at least three generations.
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Animals
Invasive asexual midges may upset Antarctica’s delicate moss banks
Fast-multiplying insects with earthworm powers have invaded Antarctica, and scientists are worried about how their waste could affect the continent.
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Animals
Humans wiped out mosquitoes (in one small lab test)
An early lab test of exterminating a much-hated mosquito raises hopes, but is it really such a great idea?
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Animals
Counting the breaths of wild porpoises reveals their revved-up metabolism
A new method tracks harbor porpoises’ breathing to collect rare information on the energy needs of the marine mammals.
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Plants
Hybrid rice engineered with CRISPR can clone its seeds
New research has created self-cloning hybrid rice, raising hopes of higher food production.
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Animals
Pea aphid youngsters use piggyback rides to escape a crisis
When some mammal is about to munch their plant, aphids drop to the ground and youngsters want a ride to safety.
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Animals
A jumping spider mom nurses her brood for weeks on milk
Even after spiderlings start hunting for themselves, they come to mom for milk.
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Animals
Mosquitoes may surf winds above Africa more than we realized
More than 40 meters up, balloon traps in Mali caught females of malaria-spreading mosquito species.
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Animals
How locust ecology inspired an opera
When an entomologist decides to write a libretto, you get an operatic elegy to locusts.
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Animals
Hemp fields offer a late-season pollen source for stressed bees
Colorado’s legal fields of low-THC cannabis can attract a lot of bees.