True-pal lizards may show odd gene

Willing to stand between the neighborhood bully and your pal next door?

BULLY BOY. The large, aggressive, orange-marked lizard relentlessly harasses his neighbors. S. Mills

California lizards doing just that may have a genetic quirk that scientists have been looking for since the 1960s but hardly ever found.

The search for the genetic phenomenon began as theorists wondered why altruism doesn’t just self-sacrifice itself out of existence, explains Andrew G.