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Giselle Clarkson
Let’s find a mate for Ned
One in 40,000 snails have the spiral on the left side of the shell, and they can only mate with other lefties. Can you help Ned find true love?
Let's find a mate for Ned
One in 40,000 snails have the spiral on the left side of the shell, and they can only mate with other lefties. Can you help Ned find true love?
The Observologist
Giselle Clarkson on mounting very small scientific expeditions.
Pick a side
Bees and cockatoos, walruses, spider monkeys, pūkeko—throughout the animal kingdom, individuals often favour a certain hand (or eye, or antenna). But how did so many humans end up right-handed? And why, historically, did we give lefties the side-eye?
One in a million
Almost all garden snail shells coil to the right-hand side of their bodies. You’ll probably never see a left-coiled snail in your life—so when a retiree found one in his London garden, he sent it in to the University of Nottingham.
Taking sides
When left- or right-handedness is a matter of life and death.
