The team also uses radioactively-labeled neurochemicals to see where signaling molecules take hold. They've noticed that differing levels of a key hormone determine the strength of an ant's nurturing instinct, and that ants who don't follow the colony's overall reproductive cycle are summarily executed by "police" ants.

The genetic tweaking clearly sheds some light on how animal societies work on a basic level, but it should also be useful for studying many complex biological systems. An ant colony is really just a collective organism, when you think about it. The researchers believe they could get insights into human conditions with social elements, such as autism and depression, and understand why cancer cells ignore the usual cues to stop growth. In other words, these tiny creatures might lead to some serious breakthroughs.