Every now and then, science and intuition converge and seem to affirm things we knew all along. From our earliest memories as small children, we instinctively ran to our mother whenever we cut, abraded, scratched, bumped, pinched, burned, or otherwise injured ourselves or fell victim to such treacheries from others. We learned that a mother’s soothing words, gentle ministrations, and warm caress were universal solvents to virtually all of life’s irritants, disappointments, troubles, and fears. Years later, we deduced that we had grown up because we now dealt with all of those annoyances on our own. Although repeated opportunities to manage such wrinkles in our personal and professional lives purportedly help us to build self-confidence, they can occasionally make us long for those days when mom’s hug was all that we needed to make everything alright again. Are hugs still good for us or was that belief just a childhood...

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