Social Slime Molds Meet Their Match

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Biologists have debated the existence of altruistic genes that recognize and aid copies of themselves. However, demonstrating such "green-beard" genes in biological systems has proved difficult. In their Perspective, Crespi and Springer describe an elegant set of experiments (Queller et al.) that identify a green-beard gene encoding a homophilic adhesion protein in the slime mold Dictyostelium.