About this episode

This episode explores the mystery of why only 10% of people are left-handed through insights from various scientific fields.

Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists have all sought explanations, resulting in an astronomical amount of research into the mystery of handedness. No one has put all the pieces together yet, but over the last few years, some major new clues have emerged. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Hannah Waters speaks with writer Natalie Wolchover and traces these new clues to uncover the mystery of human handedness. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine. Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel and Senior Editor Hannah Waters speak with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

People in this episode

Host: Hannah Waters

Guest: Natalie Wolchover

Topics covered

• handedness
• genetics
• neuroscience
• evolution
• developmental biology

Keywords

• left-handedness
• genetics
• neuroscience
• evolution
• developmental biology
• handedness research

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Quanta Magazine

More episodes of The Quanta Podcast

• Audio Edition: ‘Reverse Mathematics’ Illuminates Why Hard Problems Are Hard · September 10, 2026 · 12 min
• Does Computer Science Need Computers? · September 8, 2026 · 30 min
• How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World · September 1, 2026 · 31 min
• Audio Edition: A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life · August 27, 2026 · 17 min
• Picking Teams With the Math of Imbalance · August 25, 2026 · 31 min
• What Makes a Fluid a Fluid? · August 18, 2026 · 36 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Quanta Podcast podcast page.