Just gotta hand it to you

Being a leftie in a right-handed world can be challenging (consider scissors, or student desks shaped to favor right-handers), but there may be advantages. Among the estimated 10 percent of the human population who favor the left hand are some impressive people: Presidents Obama, Reagan, and Clinton; Alexander the Great, Queen Victoria and Joan of Arc; David Rockefeller, H.G. Wells, and columnist Dave Barry.

The idea that left-handers, also called "southpaws," are more intelligent is unproven (as is the persistent claim that Einstein was a southpaw, despite photos of him writing with his right), but studies do suggest that certain characteristics seem to go with one hand or another.

Even animals have individual, if not species-specific, preferences. Cats and dogs favor a right or left paw, with about half favoring left and half, right. However, more human-like animals, according to biologists, tend more as a group to favor one side. In a paper published in the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers reported that most chimps and gorillas tend to favor the right hand, whereas more orangutans favor the left. Why is unknown; is this all genetics, observed behavior, some combination?

As University of British Columbia psychologist and author Stanley Coren wrote, ancient cave paintings display spears and other objects in right hands, and spectators can see cave-painting artists' "signature" right-handprints. But the terms left- or "right-handed" are misleading; while most humans favor the right to write, for example, the same people also favor the left for other tasks, such as a tennis swing. The percentage of left-handed tennis champions is higher than in the general population. Same goes for boxers.

Can we teach ourselves to be ambidextrous? Doubtful, but some claim success anyway. Scientists say only about 1 percent of the population actually can use either hand equally, and point to a gene - passed down through the father - for handedness. Results from a 2007 study of dyslexic children published in Molecular Psychiatry included identification of a gene which increases the chances of left-handedness, as well as increased risk of schizophrenia and auto-immune disorders.

Genetic chances are not certainties; even among identical twins there are left- and right-handers. Einstein notwithstanding, other correlations include a greater tendency by lefties to be successful in visual-spatial fields such as architecture, art and design, with more righties represented in the traditional sciences, according to Coren.

Studies of left-handers are inconsistent. Even among researchers, handedness is differently defined (right and left? Right and non-right? What about ambidextrous?) and measured (Writing? Reaching for a glass? That tennis swing?), so an organization in Indiana called the Handedness Research Institute is attempting to coordinate efforts and develop standards, as well as advocacy - such as the right to have alternatives to those right-handed desks. They hope to help society better understand the brain, and "negotiate the best way for opposite-handed individuals to live and work together."

And why "southpaws?" It seems to have originated in baseball. In major parks the pitcher's mounds face east, to avoid the setting sun in a pitcher's eyes. Left-handed pitchers thus threw with the "south" hand.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at [email protected].