How are you feeling about Christmas lunch with the relatives? Worried you'll regress to your teenage years and all start pushing each other's buttons? The answer to this, as to all other questions, comes from maths: it pays to be nice!

Yes, yes it does.

For the full answer to this question, as well as a great way to while away the time between courses, get yourself or your loved ones a copy of SuperCooperators: Evolution, altruism and human behaviour or Why we need each other to succeed by Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield.

We were lucky enough to travel to Cambridge, MA, to meet Nowak and his colleagues and find out more about his research. You can read our interview with him and other stories about the maths of altruism in our package and ebook.

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