Cooperation vs. competition

You already know what happens in human beings. Millions of sperms fight each others to reach the egg first. At the end, usually only one will make it to fertilization. In the most intelligent animals on this planet, that means rodents, sperms are more cooperative. PlosONE recently published a research showing the function of the typical hook on rodent sperms (in the post picture): rodent sperms attach to their companions and form trains of sperms which reach the target faster than single sperms. A nice example of positive cooperation.

History revision

This is what I thought after watching the movie Baader, about the life of R.A.F. chef, Andreas Baader. R.A.F. was a terrorist movement active in Germany during the ‘70s. The movie represents those terrorists like alcoholics, drug addicted car robbers. On the other side, German police is managing the situation in the same way a good father would control his rebel son. I red the real R.A.F. story on the net, and of course it is completely different. The conclusion is: Internet was again the only free way to get objective information. Hopefully Internet will remain free for a long time.