Why am I left-handed?

Why am I left-handed?

Up next

The Life Scientific: Pierre Friedlingstein

The COP30 climate summit is taking place in the Brazilian city of Belém, a gateway to the Amazon rainforest, which continues to face widespread deforestation. We all know that our climate is changing and that we are largely responsible for this, but we can’t tackle the problem un ...  Show more

The Life Scientific: Julia Simner

Imagine if you were listening to an opera or a Taylor Swift concert, and as the lights in the auditorium dimmed, the music was accompanied by a rainbow of colours only you could see. Perhaps while listening to your friends talking, you simultaneously experience a smorgasbord of t ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Selects: Why Do Lefties Exist?
Stuff You Should Know

For at least the last 200,000 years, between 10-15% of the human population are left-handed and this fact has utterly left science baffled. In searching to explain handedness, all sorts of contradictory evidence has emerged, creating a fascinating mystery. Learn all about it i ...

  Show more

In which subject are left-handed people better than right-handed people?
You'll Die Smarter

Before we begin, you should know that there are approximately 930 million left-handed people in the world. But can dominant sides lead people to be better (or worse) in specific subjects? Actually yes. Left-handed individuals are better at mathematics. To reach this conclusion, r ...  Show more

Howard I. Kushner, “On the Other Hand: Left Hand, Right Brain, Mental Disorder, and History” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2017)
New Books in Science

In the early twentieth century, Robert Hertz, a French anthropologist, and Cesare Lombroso, the Italian criminologist, debated the causes and consequences of left-handedness. According to Lombroso, left-handed individuals were more likely to be criminals. Hertz disagreed. For him ...  Show more

Left-handed workers in a right-handed world
The Future of Work Podcast

About 10 per cent of people are left handed, yet the world of work is overwhelmingly set up for right-handers. There are also numerous examples – historical and contemporary - of discrimination and stigma in relation to left-handed people. International Left-handers Day, on Augus ...  Show more