All Stories by Susan Milius
- Climate
Abigail Swann’s alternate Earths show how plants shape climate
Abigail Swann's studies reveal that water vapor from forests can affect drought patterns a hemisphere away.
- Plants
Why tumbleweeds may be more science fiction than Old West
A tumbleweed is just a maternal plant corpse giving her living seeds a chance at a good life somewhere new.
- Life
Climate change may be throwing coral sex out of sync
Several widespread corals in the Red Sea are flubbing cues to spawn en masse.
- Life
Fly fossils might challenge the idea of ancient trilobites’ crystal eyes
Fossilized crane flies from 54 million years ago probably got their crystal lenses after death.
- Animals
Why one biologist chases hurricanes to study spider evolution
For more rigorous spider data, Jonathan Pruitt rushes into the paths of hurricanes.
- Life
How these tiny insect larvae leap without legs
High-speed filming reveals how a blob of an insect can leap more efficiently than it crawls.
- Animals
There’s more to pufferfish than that goofy spiked balloon
Three odd things about pufferfishes: how they mate, how they bite and what’s up with no fish scales?
- Ecosystems
Planting trees could buy more time to fight climate change than thought
Earth has nearly a billion hectares suitable for new forests to start trapping carbon, a study finds.
- Animals
Ground beetle genitals have the genetic ability to get strange. They don’t
A new look at the genetics of sex organs finds underpinnings of conflicts over genital size.
- Animals
U.S. honeybees had the worst winter die-off in more than a decade
Colonies suffered from parasitic, disease-spreading Varroa mites. Floods and fire didn’t help.
- Life
Some fungi trade phosphorus with plants like savvy stockbrokers
New views show how fungi shift their stores of phosphorus toward more favorable markets where the nutrient is scarce.
- Animals
Shy fish no bigger than a pinkie provide much of the food in coral reefs
More than half of the fish flesh that predators in coral reefs eat comes from tiny, hard-to-spot species.
