This week’s New Scientist includes a short piece from me about conformist rats.

Until now, only humans and chimps were known to succumb to peer pressure, to the extent that we often ignore our own experiences based on the preferences of others. But a new study in brown rats shows that these rodents are similarly prone to following the Joneses. They can even be persuaded to choose a piece of food that they know makes them sick if they smell it on the breath of a ‘demonstrator’ rat.

Bennett Galef and Elaine Whiskin at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontaria, Canada, trained rats to avoid cinnamon-flavoured food pellets by injecting them with a nausea-inducing chemical (lithium chloride) after their meals. When