All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Larvaceans’ underwater ‘snot palaces’ boast elaborate plumbing
Mucus houses have valves and ducts galore that help giant larvaceans extract food from seawater.
- Life
More ‘murder hornets’ are turning up. Here’s what you need to know
Two more specimens of the world’s largest hornet have just been found in North America.
- Life
Pollen-deprived bumblebees may speed up plant blooming by biting leaves
In a pollen shortage, some bees nick holes in tomato leaves that accelerate flowering, and pollen production, by weeks.
- Life
Why otters ‘juggle’ rocks is still a mystery
Shuffling pebbles really fast looks as if it should boost otters’ dexterity, but a new study didn’t find a link.
- Animals
Why mammals like elephants and armadillos might get drunk easily
Differences in a gene for breaking down alcohol could help explain which mammals get tipsy.
- Animals
Earthy funk lures tiny creatures to eat and spread bacterial spores
Genes that cue spore growth also kick up a scent that draws in springtails.
- Animals
The ‘insect apocalypse’ is more complicated than it sounds
Freshwater arthropods trended upward, while terrestrial ones declined. But the study’s decades of data are spotty.
- Animals
Insects’ extreme farming methods offer us lessons to learn and oddities to avoid
Insects invented agriculture long before humans did. Can we learn anything from them?
- Life
Algae use flagella to trot, gallop and move with gaits all their own
Single-celled microalgae, with no brains, can coordinate their “limbs” into a trot or fancier gait.
- Life
Engineered honeybee gut bacteria trick attackers into self-destructing
Tailored microbes defend bees with a gene-silencing process called RNA interference that takes on viruses or mites.
- Life
How pandas use their heads as a kind of extra limb for climbing
Short legs on a stout bear body means pandas use a rare technique to climb up a tree.
- Life
Koalas aren’t primates, but they move like monkeys in trees
With double thumbs and a monkey-sized body, an iconic marsupial climbs like a primate.
