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Getting by in a Game without Winners
Is "rock-paper-scissors" a common biological motif?
Email: Stuart Blackman - sblackman@the-scientist.com The Scientist 2005, 19(7):32
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A time-honored tradition for choosing teams, riding shotgun, and settling other childish disputes, the game called rock-paper-scissors has been around far longer than humans have been playing it. Similar nontransitive games, in which no one strategy reigns over all others, are played out among certain lizards, microbes, and marine organisms. And some biologists are suggesting that, rather than being a mere biological oddity, the rock-paper-scissors dynamic is a widespread phenomenon that maintains genetic diversity within species and ecosystems.
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