HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN CRISIS

"The dire situations in cyclone-battered Myanmar and quake-tossed southwestern China and the impulse of many to offer relief have a lot to do with human nature. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely did it, and non-human primates do it. We are hard-wired to help others, to drop everything in crisis situations, scientists say. "People do really respond in these crisis situations where it's really a short-term matter of life or death," said Daniel Kruger at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. The motivation to give dates back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, he said." (Yahoo News, 19 May)) RD