Scientists revisit a well-studied philosophical scenario to explore hierarchy within cooperation

Mice resolve conflicts by observing 'social rules' to enhance long-term mutual benefits

"Our results seem to support the hypothesis that raising offspring cooperatively may have promoted the emergence of prosocial tendencies not only in humans, but also in other animals."

The maze constructed by the researchers was designed with fully automated features and video tracking to avoid some of the other experimental pitfalls of earlier mazes

Finding challenges the perceptions humans are unique in our ability to cooperate and chimpanzees are overly competitive, and suggests the roots of human cooperation are shared with other primates

Some scientists share better than others. While astronomers and geneticists embrace the concept, the culture of ecology still has a ways to go.