Family Matters (for amoeba)

Very cool article on social behavior in amoebae. Amoeba? Social? For real?

Even a sack of molecules as simple as an amoeba can have social behaviors. Apparently, ameobae will group together into larger blobs when food gets scarce to move faster and find more food. Unfortunately for some, creating this larger blob requires some individuals to sacrifice themselves (a pattern pretty common in insects, but pretty impressive for a single-celled organism). A new study in PLOS has shown that these the amoeba will only cooperate, however, only with closely genetically related amoebae. Nepotism has deep roots...