Why you're right-handed / A free house with a catch / Are our brains shrinking? episode artwork

EPISODE · May 19, 2026 · 12 MIN

Why you're right-handed / A free house with a catch / Are our brains shrinking?

from News Sidequest

Oxford researchers just published the most comprehensive answer yet to why 90% of humans favor their right hand — and it turns out it has everything to do with how we learned to walk. Also: a three-bedroom colonial on Nantucket that sold for $3 million five months ago is yours for free — you just have to move it off the property in 180 days, and the moving bill runs between $150,000 and $500,000. And the debate over whether human brains have been shrinking for thousands of years is genuinely unresolved — with one side saying yes, and the reasons pointing toward collective intelligence, and another side saying the data doesn't hold up. Plus a six-year-old who may be the rightful King of Norway, a Qantas flight diverted by a man who bit a flight attendant, and a 100-year overdue library book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oxford researchers just published the most comprehensive answer yet to why 90% of humans favor their right hand — and it turns out it has everything to do with how we learned to walk. Also: a three-bedroom colonial on Nantucket that sold for $3 million five months ago is yours for free — you just have to move it off the property in 180 days, and the moving bill runs between $150,000 and $500,000. And the debate over whether human brains have been shrinking for thousands of years is genuinely unresolved — with one side saying yes, and the reasons pointing toward collective intelligence, and another side saying the data doesn't hold up. Plus a six-year-old who may be the rightful King of Norway, a Qantas flight diverted by a man who bit a flight attendant, and a 100-year overdue library book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Why you're right-handed / A free house with a catch / Are our brains shrinking?

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This episode is 12 minutes long.

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This episode was published on May 19, 2026.

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Oxford researchers just published the most comprehensive answer yet to why 90% of humans favor their right hand — and it turns out it has everything to do with how we learned to walk. Also: a three-bedroom colonial on Nantucket that sold for $3...

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