Regarding genetic modification of ants, these quotes were in the article that was cited:

“This is a real breakthrough in experimental sociobiology,” says Bert Hölldobler, a behavioral biologist at Arizona State University in Tempe who was not involved with the work.  

This was “the real eye-opening result,” says Gene Robinson, a behavioral genomics researcher at the University of Illinois in Champaign who was not involved with the work. “It provides the opportunity to be comparing and contrasting brain development” in different species. 

¶

Bert Hölldobler and Gene Robinson are two people for whom I have immense respect; I value their judgement as to the merit of this line of research. 

Robinson is co-author on the following, which compares brain development in different species:

Saul, Michael C., et al. "Cross-species systems analyses reveal a conserved brain transcriptional response to social challenge." bioRxiv (2017): 219444.

Hölldobler co-wrote the epic:

Hölldobler, Bert, and Edward O. Wilson. The superorganism: the beauty, elegance, and strangeness of insect societies. WW Norton & Company, 2009.

PLB

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