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Rock-paper-scissors may explain evolutionary 'games' in nature

5/29/2015 by : Chris Cesare , Science Magazine

The hand game “rock-paper-scissors” is a classic way to settle playground disputes, with rock smashing scissors, scissors cutting paper, and paper covering rock. But it turns out that nature plays its own versions of the game, and mathematicians and biologists have used it to study everything from human societies to bacteria in a petri dish.