Your genes might explain why you run fast or have an aptitude for tennis, glitches in your brain chemistry the reason you are more prone to depression or addictive behaviour, but does your birth order also affect your life path?
Increasingly, experts think that whether you have older siblings, younger siblings or no siblings, familial hierarchy has a powerful influence on everything from your health to personality and career success. And the science of birth order is producing more evidence that an older sister or younger brother could impact your life in more ways than previously thought.
Researchers recently revealed, for instance, that having a younger sibling can raise your blood pressure — and not just because they wind you up. According to Wu Zeng,