The new studies could pave the way for anti-cancer therapies that control the makeup of these bacterial communities.

When it comes to security challenges, the natural world demonstrates the values of decentralizing, learning from success, and forming symbiotic relationships, ecologist and author Rafe Sagarin told an audience at AAAS.

Such insights are particularly compelling in the post-9/11 environment as the federal government invests billions of dollars in technology and training to increase national security.