Getting by in a Game without Winners

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.

| 6 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
6:00
Share

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.

"If the environment underlying the system is homogeneous, intuition would suggest there's going to be a good competitor that drives out all the others," says Ben Kerr, research associate at the University of Minnesota. "In rock-paper-scissors, the system itself has all the cogs and gears to generate diversity."

In California, rock-paper-scissors is played out between three male morphs of the side-blotched lizard, which are distinguished by their throat colors. Big, testosterone-pumped, orange-throated ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

  • Stuart Blackman

    This person does not yet have a bio.

Published In

Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo
New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

Sino

Products

Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide

Inventia Life Science

Inventia Life Science Launches RASTRUM™ Allegro to Revolutionize High-Throughput 3D Cell Culture for Drug Discovery and Disease Research

An illustration of differently shaped viruses.

Detecting Novel Viruses Using a Comprehensive Enrichment Panel

Twist Bio 
Zymo Research

Zymo Research Launches Microbiome Grant to Support Innovation in Microbial Sciences