All Stories by Susan Milius
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Beer-flavoring compounds guide insects
The class of compounds that give beer its bitterness does two more sober jobs in Hypericum flowers.
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Africanized bees rescue loner trees
Africanized bees pollinate some of the big Brazilian forest trees now stranded in the middle of cleared land away from their native pollinators.
- Earth
Transgenes migrate into old races of maize
Genes from bioengineered corn have somehow strayed into the traditional varieties of southern Mexico.
- Animals
The Tropical Majority
The abundant studies of temperate-zone birds may have biased ornithology when it comes to understanding the tropics.
- Animals
Birds with a criminal past hide food well
Scrub jays that have stolen food from other bird's caches hide their own with extra care.
- Animals
She-male garter snakes: Some like it hot
Male garter snakes that emerge from hibernation and attract a mob of deluded male suitors may just be looking for safety in numbers and body heat.
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When ground squirrels cry badger
Richardson's ground squirrels respond differently to alarm calls depending on whether the caller has a history of false alarms.
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Desert beetle catches fog on its back
The bumpy back of a desert beetle has inspired a design for collecting water from fog.
- Animals
Finches figure out solo how to use tools
The woodpecker finches of the Galápagos, textbook examples of birds that use tools, pick up their considerable skills without copying each other.
- Animals
Magnetic field tells nightingales to binge
Young birds that have never migrated before may take a cue from the magnetic field to fatten up before trying to fly over the Sahara.
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Virgin birth infections shift wasp targets
Scientists have found a second bacterial infection that can cause an insect version of virgin births, but this one can affect the host that a wasp attacks.
- Plants
Torn to Ribbons in the Desert
Botanists puzzle over one of Earth's oddest plants: the remarkably scraggly Welwitschia of southwestern Africa.
