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'Tis a curiously asymmetrical world! |
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(in view of the high prevalence of asymmetrical hemorrhoids, this is a great relief)
(it appears these chiropractors were unaware of Jolicoeur's seminal work: 'Bilateral symmetry and asymmetry in limb bones of Martes americana and man', Revue Canadienne du Biologie 22: 409-432; 1963)
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(perhaps the rather inconclusive outcome arose because the ear with which people listened to the news was not carefully controlled; see detecting lies and human hearing)
(revealing once again the frail state of our symphony orchestras)
(one can now see how lie-detector tests might yield misleading results depending upon which hand was wired up)
(the clinical evidence therefore confirms the common observation that, when you have a cold, one nostril invariably seems to remain clearer than the other, and it seems best to keep this nostril on the upper side when trying to sleep)
(yet another valuable tool for forensic investigators)
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"Sunlight makes us cheerful. The pineal gland in the brain is responsible; in bright light it releases hormones such as melatonin more strongly." " . . . the Earlight could illuminate one ear more than the other, thus biasing pineal gland output into the more illuminated hemisphere. Left-brain dominated rationalists could boost their emotional awareness, and right-brained dreamers could get a grip on reality." Following the same reasoning, we could control our moods by orienting the side of our brain we wished to stimulate preferentially towards a window. (from "The Seeing Ear" Nature 1998 39:541; see also Smart breathing)
(one wonders if those who do their best intellectual [right-hemisphere] work in the mornings do their best creative [left-hemisphere] work in the evenings?)
(clearly, judges and juries should be obliged to wear ear-plugs in their right ears to ensure the highest chance of a proper verdict)
(perhaps the greater left-ear sensitivity arises from a greater need to be able to detect lies)
This has also been confirmed independently by Manning & Wood who found "the most symmetrical boys showed highest aggression" (1998. Fluctuating asymmetry and aggression in boys. Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective 9: 53-65)
(when coupled with the report that IQ is higher in more symmetrical humans, this suggests a high correlation should also exist between IQ and aggressiveness; one wonders of Nobel-prize winners are more prone to violence than average)
(one wonders how the authors achieved much statistical power when analyzing answers to 87 questions from only 80 subjects)
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(Rather an understatement, since the individual preferences for initial side exceeded preferences for any of the grass diet combinations offered!)
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(one wonders if Hubbs was perhaps left handed; thanks to John Bruner for this one)
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NOTE ADDED 3/28/99: Upon encountering this entry, C.L Hubbs Jr. advised me by E-mail that his father was, in fact, right handed.
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(Hmmm . . . , why was it that Galizia et al. were inspired to consider the possibility of asymmetrical smelling?)
(one wonders if the asymmetrical distribution didn't arise because of the tendency for farmed salmon to all swim in the same direction around their pen, though we'd still be left wondering why salmon spiral in a particular direction)
We verified both the assumption and the prediction of this hypothesis: significantly lower interchiral mating success in a low-spired species and higher chiral evolution rate in high-spired taxa. Sexual asymmetry is the key to understanding the accelerated chiral evolution in high-spired pulmonates." Asami, T. et al. 1998. Evolution of mirror images by sexually asymmetric mating behavior in hermaphroditic snails. American Naturalist 152: 225-236.
(similar mating problems arise in phallostethid fishes, where males have spectacularly asymmetrical clasping structures and females are also asymmetrical)
(the author leans towards a genetic explanation, but environmentally induced reversal can not be ruled out; imagine counting 6, 268 polychaete jaws to find only two asymmetrical ones!)
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(the Coriolis effect cannot account for this pattern, since it only applies to moving objects, but both the earth's magnetic field and the direction of movement of the sun across the sky remain viable hypotheses; but let's see, at 10 palm trees per day that would have taken almost 10 years)
(updated 3/28/99)
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Original material on this page copyright (c) 1998-2002 by A. Richard Palmer. All rights reserved.
(revised Nov. 13, 2002)