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INDEPENDENT EVOLUTION. "Slave making apparently has evolved independently more than ten times, with peculiar hot spots in the myrmicine tribe." https://lnkd.in/dkcthxh View in LinkedIn

GENE CLONING. "It is fascinating to trace the fate of Mendel’s genes over the past 145 years. In some cases, we can do this with considerable certainty, tracing it through to the molecular cloning of the gene concerned and the establishment of its function, but for other genes the history is somewhat murkier." https://lnkd.in/d42Fwde View in LinkedIn

SLAVE-MAKING ANTS. "Of the estimated 8,800 species of ant in the world, more than 200 species have evolved essentially unique forms of social parasitism with other ants." Two percent of ants are slave-owners. Along with the twelve US Presidents who owned slaves (12/50 Presidents = 26%). https://lnkd.in/dk9Cs-3 View in LinkedIn

ANT WARS. "An entire colony enslaved by an alien species to care for their young. Slave rebellions quelled by mind manipulation. It sounds like science fiction, right? But it really happens!" https://lnkd.in/dabtbmb View in LinkedIn

"PARASITISM is currently considered to be one of the most powerful forces driving evolution. Traditionally, parasites are viruses, prokaryotes, or eukaryotes that exploit other such organisms. Recently, however, ultraselfish genetic elements (sex-ratio-distorting cytoplasmatic genes, meiotic drivers, etc., have also been considered to “parasitize” individual genes or complete genomes. At the other end of the range of biological entities, “social parasites” parasitize complete societies." Another huge leap in scale like multicellularity. https://lnkd.in/dkcthxh View in LinkedIn

ANTS AS A SUPERORGANISM (VIDEO), cheating, brood raiding, ant wars and peace treaties. Brilliant photography. Lack of reproduction contributes to the development of a non-centralized superorganism. And trillions of ants in super-colonies extending all over the world. Well worth watching. https://lnkd.in/dPF8b3T View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE contemplates the tiny mighty ant for one weekend. These are one of nature’s greatest success stories, in no small part by organizing as super-organisms whose sheer drive and energy punch much higher than their weight. Ant communities takes the massive evolutionary leap of multicellularity to a new level of complexity: not just a division of labor among complex cells, but a division of labor and effective multicellularity among organisms that are themselves complex multicellular creatures. View in LinkedIn

TOO GOOD? "The closeness of Mendel’s experimental observations to those predicted by his theories have led to numerous articles and ongoing debate about whether the data could have been obtained in the published form without some modification. There have been many plausible arguments made for and against this view by a range of eminent statisticians and geneticists." https://lnkd.in/d42Fwde View in LinkedIn

FOUNDATION AND LEGACY. "It would be possible to teach a well-balanced and modern genetics course based almost entirely on the use and understandings derived from Mendel’s seven characters." https://lnkd.in/d42Fwde View in LinkedIn

ISSUE OF LINKAGE. "Certainly Mendel would be surprised by the phenomenon of linkage. It should be noted that during the 1950s and 1960s it became common for textbooks to indicate that Mendel’s seven characters were each located on separate chromosomes. In 1970 Ian Murfet pointed out this mistake, and it was subsequently corrected by a brief article in Nature by Stig Blixt." https://lnkd.in/d42Fwde View in LinkedIn