h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great link Ste. So in fact, although most shells spiral right, some spiral left. And although most species produce shells which either spiral right or left, there is at least one species that maintains a 50-50 mix.

Yeah, thanks for the summary. Couldn't be arsed at the time.

Ste

I'm definitely right-handed, and I interlock my hands with the left thumb on top.

This is because you don;t just get right handedness, you get right/left thuimbedness (the test for which has just been described) and various other left/right things.

You do, I believe, get left/right legged and footed (which anyone who plays football will have noticed, no doubt).

There is, I think, some evidence for left/right eyed (for which I can't remember the test) and even some circumstantial evidence that one is left/right nostrilled. No really, we can differentiate which nostril has picked up a particular smell and it seemed, from the same test, that people were more precise with one nostril than the other.

btw, left thumb on top of clasped/interlocked hands is left thumbed.

Most people are right eyed. If you pick up a camera that you have to put up to your eye, which eye do you use? Most people use their right. So much so that it is impossible to use the left eye on some cameras.

"The key, Gnomon, here is in your term "WHen"\, I thinked. If there is not, I thing ther IS "otherwise" ih the presence!"

That was too deep thought even for me!
As far as I understand, I mean if there was not any observer (that's the "when") the problem "left-right" ... o-o-o!, well, I still cannot catch this deep thought. I'm sorry.

Orcus, thanks, and do live aminoacids are only leftturning?

marks

>>Orcus, thanks, and do live aminoacids are only leftturning?<<

Sorry don't follow that.

But maybe the answer is, all the twenty amino acids encoded in the DNA code are left handed (L) yes

I remember a Star Trek episode (it might have been a book rather than a TV show) in which there was a transported accident and Mr Spock got duplicated, but the copy was left right reversed. This had two important side effects:

1. All his amino acids were the wrong way around so he couldn't digest normal food and had to make his own food in the lab.

2. He was evil! Of course.

Picking up the dominance thread - eye & hand dominance don't always correspond. This can lead to problems sighting e.g. with a camera, as Gnomon said, or in sporting activities. In extremes, it is thought that there can even be difficulties with reading & writing.

In the movie "The Fly" the young scientist teletransported a lovely monkey - in the receiving station it was turned inside-out...
...Long time ago when my daugther started to read and write letters and very simple words (about 5 years old), it didn't make ANY difference for her was it right or mirror sided, or upside-down, or diagonal, and she was surprised and wondered why do she has to read it only in one position...

The very first alphabets were written from right to left, but the Greeks weren't happy with this. They experimented with a system called Boustrophedon - "as the ox turns". Every second line was in the opposite direction, so when you got to the end of a line, you turned the corner and came back along the next line, like an ox ploughing a field. All the letters were turned backwards when the text went the opposite direction. Eventually they gave up on this system and settled into left to right writing, which we still use today, although Arabic and Hebrew never made the switch and still go from right to left.

<<"Picking up the dominance thread - eye & hand dominance don't always correspond. This can lead to problems sighting e.g. with a camera, as Gnomon said, or in sporting activities. In extremes, it is thought that there can even be difficulties with reading & writing.">>

Left-handed and right-eye dominant here, so at last I have something to blame my atrocious handwriting and awful coordination on .

The common test for eye dominance is to hold your thumb out at arm's length and look at it. Then close one eye. Does the thumb look like it jumped a couple inches? Open both eyes, then close the other one. Did it jump this time? Whichever eye does not have the "jump" is dominant.

Handedness is generally genetic, but can also be affected by environmental factors. It's only within the last couple generations that teachers have begun accepting the difference between left and right handedness in the beginning of the school career. Children used to be forced to right with the right hand, leading to some very strange results among lefties. My grandmother is ambidextrous to a certain degree, and my mother is a classic lefty for everything except writing and using scissors... two tasks she was forced into using her right hand for in elementary school and basically reprogrammed herself for those two things. But even though she writes with her right hand, her script leans off to the left, as it would look if she'd written it left-handed.

As for myself, I'm definitely a mixed bag. I'm clearly right-handed. I'm left-eye dominant. And while I kick right-footed, I've also found some foot games easier using my left foot. And while skateboarding or snowboarding I've found it more natural to keep my right foot forward and my left back. In boarding communities that configuration is called "goofy-footed," and is generally considered to be a left-handed sort of behavior.

As for coordination, the left-eye/right-hand configuration has only been an issue for me in the area of ranged weapons. Aiming a shotgun or rifle is a bit of a problem because I have to hold the weapon into my weaker side, which means I'm going to be slightly less stable and therefore a bit less accurate. All that really means is I'm not going to be a sniper or a biathlete, which is no big deal to me. It's a bit tougher when I go spear-fishing, because I really need the extra strength and stability of my right hand, so I'm forced to try to aim from the wrong eye. But usually the target is at a short range, so it's not too big an issue. As for using a bow and arrow... that's where I'm totally hopeless. I cannot possibly use one because I'm too clumsy and weak to use it left-handed, and I can't possibly aim worth a damn with my right eye (assuming I can even find a left-handed bow to experiment with).

Other than that, I'm no more or less coordinated than the average joe.

My friend can write with both hands. With her right hand she writes from left to right and with her left hand she mirror-writes from right to left like Leonardo. She's a natural left-hander but at school was forced to learn to write with her right hand.

My father is the same. He'll be 83 this year. His right to left writing with his left hand is actually better than his left to right writing with his right hand, even though he's been writing with his right hand for more than 70 years. You can reflect his left-handed writing in a mirror and it is perfect.

Yes, this is exactly correct Gnomon. My best wishes to him!

I'd just add to Blatherskite's description to test for dominance that for greater accuracy, hold out both hands clasped together with index fingers pointing at a distant object (gun position?). This helps eliminate hand dominance/wobble.

I'm right handed & left eye dominant. Didn't realise until I had trouble playing snooker at university. When I took up archery, I had to wear an eye patch over my left eye - can close my right eye on its own, but not the left.

I think that people with crossed dominance are more likely to adopt an odd posture or position the paper at an angle when reading/writing.

Oddly enough, I don't have too much trouble shooting pool (or playing snooker, if you like). If you lean way over, you only need a slight lean to align your left eye with the cue stick in your right hand.

As for writing, I'd think we have an advantage. Our different sight line means the right hand isn't obscuring what we've written at all.