A social bacterium with versatile habits

Related individuals of a soil bacterial species live in cooperative groups and exhibit astonishing genetic and behavioural diversity. ETH researchers recently published these findings in Science .

A new approach to an old question: How do we actually cooperate?

In the animal kingdom, birds band together to ward off predators, and honeybees work collectively to benefit the entire hive. Animals of the human persuasion can act cooperatively too, at times, though this behavior is not ...

The positives of playing favorites

Though often portrayed as unfair or a character flaw, in many instances “playing favorites can be a winning strategy,” a Harvard researcher says.

Helping family is key for social birds

(Phys.org) -- Social birds that forgo breeding to help to raise the offspring of other group members are far more likely care for their own close relatives than for more distant kin, a new study has found.

Attention skills in a nonhuman cooperative breeding species

Cooperative breeding may facilitate the development of sophisticated communicative abilities such as intentionality and joint attention skills. Two new studies of researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in ...

The rich, the poor and social cooperation

The thicker the wallet, the more cooperative you are? An economist from the Max-Planck-Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance proves via laboratory experiments that rich people are believed to be more cooperative than poor ...

Lend me a flipper: Dolphins and cooperation

Cooperation is one of the most important abilities for any social species. From hunting, breeding, and child rearing, it has allowed many animals—including humans—to survive and thrive. As we better understand the details ...

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