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How Scientists Learned a 550-Million-Year-Old Sea Creature Was Right-Handed

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The science of handedness is going through a bit of a renaissance right now. Just in the past few months, researchers have uncovered more about why roughly 90 percent of humans are right-handed and have come up with theories that suggest that handedness may depend more on practice than genetics. Researchers have even come up with ways that you can determine your dog’s handedness.

Now, according to research published in Scientific Reports and covered by The New York Times, a completely different team has pushed the origins of handedness back another half-billion years by identifying what may be the oldest right-handed animal ever discovered.

The fossil once belonged to a small wormlike critter called a Spriggina that lived about 550 million years ago during the........

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