Human beings would probably be known as pilosals rather than mammals if Carl Linnaeus had not been a proponent of breast-feeding. For social and political reasons, the famed taxonomist labeled the class of animals to which humans belong with a reference to their practice of suckling their young rather than to their evolutionarily older characteristic of having hair. (more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Here’s an easy way to improve your health: trust your neighbors. A new study from the University of Missouri shows that increasing trust in neighbors is associated with better self-reported health.
“I examined the idea of ‘relative position,’ or where one fits into the income distribution in their local community, as it applies to both trust of neighbors and self-rated health,” said Eileen Bjornstrom, an assistant professor of sociology in the MU College of Arts and Science. “Because human beings engage in interpersonal comparisons in order to gauge individual characteristics, it has been suggested that a low relative position, or feeling that you are below another person financially, leads to stress and negative emotions such as shame, hostility and distrust, and that health suffers as a consequence. While most people aren’t aware of how trust impacts them, results indicated that trust was a factor in a person’s overall health.” (more…)
