There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Ants have been talking for a long time
Although the study of ants can be interpreted to suit any political or philosophical argument it can fuel organisational imagination, write Rox Middleton, Liam Shaw and Miriam Gauntlett
ANCIENT KNOW-HOW, PLANNING AND TEAM EFFORT: (L to R) Bridge building; Fossil ant in Baltic amber, age about 50 million years, Eocene; Myrmecocystus ants storing nectar to prevent colony famine
[(L to R) Igor Chuxlancev-Anders L Damgaard-Greg Hume all CC] 
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
COMPLEX multicomponent societies rely principally on communication. Researchers suggest that evidence of 100 million years of communication gives us a deeper insight into the evolution of ant sociality.
Emergent properties of groups occur when many things interact to produce effects that are not seen in the case of the isolated individual element.
From simple things like waves and crystals, to complex ones like swarms and consciousness, these effects are ubiquitous.
More from this author
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
