The Sinister Hand, Part 1
Curious Cases
BBC
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2016
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Neal Shepperson asks, "What determines left or right handedness and why are us lefties in the minority?"
When we started investigating this question it became clear that there were just too many scientific mysteries to squeeze into one episode. So there are two whole episodes devoted to this very Curious Case.
One in ten people are left-handed, but where does this ratio come from and when did it appear in our evolutionary past?
Hannah talks to primatologist Prof Linda Marchant from Miami University about Neanderthal teeth and termite fishing.
Adam consults handedness expert Prof Chris McManus from University College London. He's been trying to track down the genes responsible for whether we're right or left handed.
If you have any Curious Cases for the team to investigate please email curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Adam Rutherford & Hannah Fry Producer: Michelle Martin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to series three of the curious case of random football. |
| 0:04.1 | I thought we were going with season three. |
| 0:05.7 | Well, I know I listened back to it and I regretted our bold statements that we made during this football. |
| 0:13.6 | Okay, series three then. |
| 0:14.7 | Series three. |
| 0:15.3 | And as we sense about this. |
| 0:16.5 | And of course, in curious cases, what we do is we ask you the listener to send in your scientific queries, |
| 0:23.4 | conundrums. |
| 0:24.4 | Things you've always been curious about, the things you want us to investigate on your behalf. |
| 0:28.6 | And we send them into curious cases at BBC.co.uk to either Dr Fry who's sitting over there. |
| 0:34.0 | Or Dr Rutherford who is sitting over there. |
| 0:36.1 | Hello. |
| 0:38.0 | Now this question actually is something that I think for 90% of the population just doesn't really |
| 0:43.2 | occur to us a lot of the time. |
| 0:44.6 | So if I throw this microphone baffle at you now, just just a little test. |
| 0:50.4 | Really? |
| 0:51.2 | And go, you caught up with two hands. |
| 0:53.3 | I know, I'm sorry, but I knew that I'd drop it if I tried to catch you with what the whole point is you're actually catching with them again. |
| 0:57.8 | You're right hand. |
| 0:58.6 | Like I just did. |
| 0:59.3 | Indeed. |
| 1:00.1 | This episode is about right and left handness and where it comes from. |
... |
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