This Week in Evolution

Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing aging across countries "The degree to which demographic aging translates into societal challenges depends to a considerable extent on the age at which mental functioning becomes significantly impaired.... In several countries with older populations, we find better cognitive performance on the part of populations aged 50+ than in countries with chronologically younger populations."

Large-scale, spatially-explicit test of the refuge strategy for delaying [sprayed] insecticide resistance
"refuges delayed resistance and treated cotton fields accelerated resistance"

The evolutionary basis of human social learning "We tested nine hypotheses derived from theoretical models, running a series of experiments..."

Collaborative learning in networks "In contrast to prior work, however, we found that efficient networks outperformed inefficient [slower] networks, even in a problem space with qualitative properties thought to favor inefficient networks."

Historical contingency affects signaling strategies and competitive abilities in evolving populations of simulated robots "populations with the more complex [but less efficient] strategy outperformed the populations with the less complex strategy"

The spread of a transposon insertion in Rec8 is associated with obligate asexuality in Daphnia "this element may be in the process of spreading through the species"