Dinosaur-killing asteroid and 'jumping genes' may have helped ants rule the world

A study in Science Advances suggests ants' evolutionary success after the asteroid impact that ended the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was partly driven by 'jumping genes', DNA segments that copy themselves around the genome. Researchers led by Lukas Schrader at Germany's University of Münster found bursts of this activity coincided with the rise of major ant groups and may have sharpened their scent communication.