To call Syria a hornets nest would be an insult to hornets everywhere. And, to be fair, hornets don’t deserve the comparison. They are actually among nature’s greatest altruists. Thanks to the unique genetic process called haplodiploidy, the hornets in a nest are all more closely related to each other than human brothers and sisters are. A hornet does not think twice about sacrificing itself for the hive. And no hornet would ever use sarin gas on a member of its own nest.