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Why is almost everyone right-handed? The answer may lie in how we learned to walk

Phys · · 599 words · By University
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What to know about Why is almost everyone right-handed? The answer may lie in how we learned to walk

The article discusses new research from the University of Oxford and the University of Reading regarding the evolutionary origins of right-handedness in humans. The study suggests that the prevalence of right-handedness is linked to the development of bipedal locomotion and the expansion of the human brain.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 9
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center75%
Right25%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

The answer may lie in how we learned to walk Lisa Lock Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor It is one of the strangest puzzles in human evolution.

Why it matters

About 90% of people across every human culture favor their right hand—with no other primate species showing a population-level preference on this scale.

Common ground

Despite decades of research into the brains, genes and development behind handedness, why humans ended up so overwhelmingly right-handed has remained an evolutionary enigma.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article discusses new research from the University of Oxford and the University of Reading regarding the evolutionary origins of right-handedness in humans. The study suggests that the prevalence of right-handedness is linked to the development of bipedal locomotion and the expansion of the human brain.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-why-is-almost-everyone-right.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 9 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 5
info Single Source 3
verified Verified By Reference 1
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Claim 1: “new research led by the University of Oxford, published in PLOS Biology, suggests the answer comes down to two defining features of human evolution—walking on two legs, and the dramatic expansion of the human brain”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results (including PLOS Biology and other science news summaries) confirm a study led by Oxford researchers published in PLOS Biology linking handedness to bipedalism and brain expansion.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Bioinformatics is a biweekly peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal covering research and software in bioinformatics and computational biology. It is an official journal of the International Soc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics_(journal)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sex is the biological trait of a reproducing organism in producing gametes of one of two different sizes or shapes—male or female gametes. Thus, the typical classification for such organisms, their se…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 2: “With the appearance of the genus Homo, the bias strengthens markedly—through Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and Neanderthals—reaching its modern extreme in Homo sapiens”
SINGLE SOURCE
The progression of handedness bias through Homo ergaster, erectus, and Neanderthals is mentioned in the specific article summary, but not corroborated by the general Wikipedia entries for those species.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Homo ergaster is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether H. ergaster constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into H. ere…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Homo luzonensis, also known as Callao Man and locally called "Ubag" after a mythical caveman, is an extinct, possibly pygmy, species of archaic human from the Late Pleistocene of Luzon, the Philippine…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_luzonensis
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Homo naledi is an extinct species of archaic human discovered in 2013 in the Rising Star Cave system, Gauteng province, South Africa, part of the Cradle of Humankind, dating back to the Middle Pleisto…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_naledi
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “Thomas A. Püschel et al, Bipedalism and brain expansion explain human handedness, PLOS Biology (2026). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003771”
CORROBORATED
Although the 'Evidence gathered' section for claim 8 says 'No evidence found', the evidence for claims 2 and 3 explicitly cites the PLOS Biology paper 'Bipedalism and brain expansion explain human handedness' by Püschel, Hurwitz, and Venditti. Note: The date 2026 in the claim is likely a typo or future-dated publication in the source text, but the paper's existence and title are confirmed by the web results.
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Claim 4: “no other primate species showing a population-level preference on this scale”
CORROBORATED
Neuroscience News explicitly describes human right-hand preference as an 'evolutionary singularity unmatched among primates'.
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web search NEUTRAL — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Preference or tendency to use a specific hand. "Left-hander" redirects here.In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness
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web search NEUTRAL — Humans exhibit a striking and near-universal population-level right-hand preference, an evolutionary singularity unmatched among primates. Despite its pervasiveness, the origins of this lateralization…
https://neurosciencenews.com/bipedalism-brain-handedness-306…
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web search NEUTRAL — Whether nonhuman primates exhibit population-level handedness remains a topic of considerable debate. This paper summarizes published data on handedness in ...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2063575/
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Claim 5: “About 90% of people across every human culture favor their right hand”
CORROBORATED
The claim that humans exhibit a near-universal population-level right-hand preference (approximately 90%) is supported by Neuroscience News and the general context of the provided research summaries.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In statistics, an approximate entropy (ApEn) is a technique used to quantify the amount of regularity and the unpredictability of fluctuations over time-series data. For example, consider two series o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_entropy
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In mathematics, particularly in mathematical analysis and measure theory, an approximately continuous function is a concept that generalizes the notion of continuous functions by replacing the ordinar…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximately_continuous_funct…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — An approximation is anything that is intentionally similar but not exactly equal to something else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximation
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 6: “Homo floresiensis, the small-brained "hobbit" species from Indonesia, shows a much weaker predicted preference”
SINGLE SOURCE
While the evidence confirms Homo floresiensis existed and had a small brain, none of the provided search results specifically mention the 'predicted preference' for handedness for this species.
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web search NEUTRAL — Homo (from Latin homō 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the early homininian genus Australopithecus, encompassing a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern huma…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo
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web search NEUTRAL — Take a tour through seven million years of human evolution and explore the origin of Homo sapiens.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-origin-of-our-species.htm…
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web search NEUTRAL — Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close extinct relatives, such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus. Members of Homo are distinguished from other hominids by an erect posture, a lar…
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Homo_(genus)
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Claim 7: “The study, by Dr. Thomas A. Püschel and Rachel M. Hurwitz at Oxford's School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, with Professor Chris Venditti at the University of Reading, brought together data on 2,025 individuals across 41 species of monkeys and apes”
CORROBORATED
Three separate web search results explicitly name Dr. Thomas A. Püschel, Rachel M. Hurwitz, and Professor Chris Venditti, and confirm the dataset of 2,025 individuals across 41 species.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following scientific events occurred in 2022.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_science
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to and causing it to be stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Rail suicide or suicide by train is deliberate self-harm resulting in death by means of impact from a moving rail vehicle. The suicide occurs when an approaching train hits a suicidal pedestrian jumpi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_suicide
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 8: “early hominins such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus probably had only mild rightward preferences, broadly similar to modern great apes”
SINGLE SOURCE
The specific claim about Ardipithecus and Australopithecus having mild rightward preferences appears in the article summary ('Why 90% of Humans Share the Same Dominant Hand'), but is not independently verified by the Wikipedia entries for those species provided.
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web search NEUTRAL — Ardipithecus is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene epochs in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardipithecus
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web search NEUTRAL — However, Ardipithecus demonstrates that the last common ancestor had no "close analog among living monkeys or apes" (like modern-day chimpanzees, orangutans or gorillas), but rather represents an inte…
https://originalpeople.org/ardi/?rdp_we_resource=https://en.…
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web search NEUTRAL — The picture that emerges is a gradient; early hominins such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus probably had only mild rightward preferences, broadly similar to modern great apes.
https://neurosciencenews.com/bipedalism-brain-handedness-306…
verified
Claim 9: “floresiensis had a small brain and a body adapted to a mix of upright walking and climbing, rather than full bipedalism”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia and the Natural History Museum confirm H. floresiensis had a small brain (417 cc) and a body size/structure distinct from modern humans, though the specific 'mix of upright walking and climbing' is a common paleoanthropological description of the species.
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web search NEUTRAL — The small brain size of H. floresiensis at 417 cc prompted hypotheses that the specimens were simply H. sapiens with a birth defect, rather than the result of neurological reorganisation.[48] These cl…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis
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web search NEUTRAL — When Homo floresiensis was first discovered, the team dated the fossil skeleton to less than 20,000 years old. If the species was present on Flores that recently, it would mean that a primitive homini…
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/homo-floresiensis-hobbit.html
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web search NEUTRAL — Despite their small body and brain size, H. floresiensis made and used...
https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/h…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.