Ants!

This is a cast of of an ant nest. Pretty cool!

In an effort to explore scientific issues in my blog I am going to try and blog about social insects on Tuesday and choanoflagellates on Thursdays. I will intersperse other science if it catches my attention, but as an exercise I am going to give this a try. I think ants are truly amazing. With a diversity of social structures they really cast human societies in a new light. Darwin, in the Origin of Species, described several ant societies that contain slaves. Slaves! How crazy is that but more about that in the future. There is also evidence for teaching and learning in ant communities. To start things off I point in the direction of an interview of E.O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, by Andrea Seabrook (who I find kind of annoying, but Wilson is great.)