The Altruistic Gene
Monday, October 22, 2012 - 13:40
in Biology & Nature
We humans take great pride in our ability to come together and cooperate as a society. Interestingly, many microbes cooperate as well. A central conundrum among scientists studying microbial cooperation has been how bacteria manage to prevent cheaters from taking over their population, even without jails or stocks or scarlet letters. Now, a new study finds a surprising genetic mechanism that manages to punish cheaters by depriving them of a private good.Bacteria manage to punish cheaters, even without overloading their prison system. (Apologies to SolieLInitiative and Raul654 of wikimedia for my poor graphics skills) read more