Group living is stressful for all mammals, and these stresses limit the size of their social groups. Humans live in very large groups by mammal standards, so how have they solved this problem? I use homicide rates as an index of within-community stress for humans living in small-scale ethnographic societies, and show that the frequency of homicide increases linearly with living-group size in hunter-gatherers. This is not, however, the case for cultivators living in permanent settlements, where there appears to be a 'glass ceiling' below which homicide rates oscillate. This glass ceiling correlates with the adoption of social institutions that allow tensions to be managed. The results suggest (a) that the transition to a settled lifestyle in the Neolithic may have been more challenging than is usually assumed and (b) that the increases in settlement size that followed the first villages necessitated the introduction of a series of social institutions designed to manage within-community discord.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10426039 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.39 | DOI Listing |
The rape and murder of a trainee doctor in RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata on August 9, 2024, was a brutal crime but had nothing to do with patients or violence by patients or their attendants against health workers. The accused is a civic volunteer who is said to have frequented the hospital as a tout, fleecing patients by promising to get them a bed or help them get tests done for free or at discounted rates [1]. However, following the incident, the protests by doctors, mostly resident doctors' associations across the country, zeroed in on protection for doctors and health workers from violence and attacks by patients through a central law as one of their main demands [2].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Prev Med
January 2025
The Ubuntu Center on Racism, Global Movements, and Population Health Equity, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Introduction Cash bail reforms that end pretrial detention due to the inability to afford bail have been highly debated across the US. A major concern cited by bail reform opponents is that reducing pretrial detention will increase community violence, particularly violence against women. The objective of this study was to assess if New Jersey's cash bail reform was associated with changes in rates of fatal violence against women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
December 2024
Nursing School, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 30130100, Brazil.
The aim of the present study is to identify obesogenic environment profiles to find the obesogenic environment pattern for Belo Horizonte City. The current research followed the ecological approach and was substantiated by data from food shops, public sports venues, crime rates (homicides and robberies) and the rate of accidents with pedestrians. Descriptive analyses and principal component analysis (PCA) were conducted in Stata software, version 14.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForensic Sci Int
December 2024
Criminal Investigation School, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China; Chongqing Institutions of Higher Education Municipal Key Criminal Technology Laboratory, Chongqing, China; Intelligent Research Center of Difficult Homicide Cases Investigation, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China. Electronic address:
In criminal investigations, distinguishing between impact spatters and fly spots presents a challenge due to their morphological similarities. Traditional methods of bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) rely significantly on the expertise of professional examiners, which can result in limitations including low identification efficiency, high misjudgment rates, and susceptibility to external disturbances. To enhance the accuracy and scientific rigor of identifying impact spatters and fly spots, this study employed artificial intelligence techniques in image recognition and transfer learning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!