Why am I left-handed?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neal Shepperson asks, "What determines left or right handedness and why are us lefties in the minority?"

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 why Neanderthal teeth could hold the answer.

Prof Chris McManus from University College London tells Adam about his quest to track down the genes responsible for whether we're right or left handed.

But does left-handedness affect people’s brains and behaviour? Some researchers point to a link between left-handedness and impairments like autism or dyslexia. Others claim that lefties are more creative and artistic.

So where does the answer lie? The team consults Professors Sophie Scott, Chris McManus and Dorothy Bishop to find out the truth about left-handers.

If you have any Curious Cases for the team to investigate please email [email protected]

Picture: Left handed child, credit: Diarmid Courreges/AFP/Getty Images

Presenter: Adam Rutherford & Hannah Fry

Producer: Michelle Martin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:03.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,
0:07.0	go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts.
0:10.0	Welcome to episode 4 of the Curate broadcasts.
0:17.0	Welcome to episode four of the curious cases of Rutherford and Fry in which Dr Adam Motherford and myself investigate your everyday science mysteries.
0:22.0	Indeed, and if you've got a question that you'd like us to investigate,
0:25.1	then do send them to curious cases at BBC.co.
0:29.2	UK.
0:29.6	Indeed, now, today we have got a double-hander if you will on left-handers.
0:35.6	Exactly so the majority of people are right-handed.
0:38.9	90% in fact. 90% but in nature almost all animals are 50-50.
0:45.0	So what's going on there?
0:47.0	That is the question.
0:48.0	Something curious is going on with us humans.
0:50.0	So we are investigating.
0:52.0	And what exactly is going on inside our brains to make lefties and righties different
0:58.1	There's quite a lot to to unpack here for this one actually a lot more than I was expecting when we first got
1:03.6	sent in this question. Well if you remember we actually thought about doing a whole
1:06.9	five episodes on this. We did because yeah there's left and right-handedness in
1:11.0	space and in molecules and in biology and in fact-handedness in space. And in molecules and in biology, and in fact the whole universe
1:14.8	seems to have a bias in one direction or the other.
1:18.8	Yeah.
	...

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