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There is something peversely special about rotting food. View in LinkedIn

HOW NUMEROUS ARE STARS?" "Assuming 10(11) to 4x10(11) stars in our Galaxy" "Assuming 2.46 x10(11) galaxies in the Cosmos" "We would have the equivalent of 2.46 x10(22) to 10(23) stars in the Universe. https://lnkd.in/dMS3ksU View in LinkedIn

EUSOCIALITY TRAITS. “In all the species that display the earliest stages of eusociality, behavior protects a persistent, defensible resource from predators, parasites, or competitors. The resource invariably consists of a nest and dependable food within foraging range of the nest. The females of many species of aculeate wasps, for example, construct nests and then provision them with paralyzed prey for the larvae to consume.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

First grape hyacinth of the spring. View in LinkedIn

ROOTS OF ALTRUISM. “In this article I argue that the origin of altruism leading to eusociality cannot be deduced by aprioristic reasoning based on general models. It can, however, be revealed by reconstructing actual histories with empirical data.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

NOT A CLUE. “The standard cosmological model known as LambdaCDM can only explain 5% of the observable Universe. The remaining 95% is famously made up almost entirely of two invisible components called dark matter and dark energy.” https://lnkd.in/dVx65w5 View in LinkedIn

COLLATERAL ALTRUISM. “Why, then, has eusociality been so rare? The answer is that it requires collateral altruism, which is behavior benefiting others at the cost of the lifetime production of offspring by the altruist. The existence of collateral altruism is one of the perennial problems of evolutionary biology. Given its genetic consequences, how can programmed sacrifices to collaterally related group members arise by natural selection?” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends on a wonderful EO Wilson article about the evolution of eusocial insect societies. Insect societies are far older than human societies and very diverse in structure. How these groups are organized, and what ramifications they have, may shed some light on future human societies, after our initial rather blundering experiments on the subject. View in LinkedIn

REVERSALS. “Evolution in the reverse direction is easily conceivable, and very likely occurred: adaptation to a broader array of food plants set the stage for multiple generations, and thence for overlapping generations in the same nest.” https://lnkd.in/drgWvGT View in LinkedIn