Left Handers Day - our big holiday! - is coming up in August. My recent Left Handers Club newsletter shared information about a competition to find new designs to celebrate the day. 

“The designs we pick will be used on Twitter and Facebook, on our website and even on T-shirts, mugs and other products. The illustration should be something fun and eye-catching, which talks about the issues lefties face, or how awesomely special we are (or both!).

As a prize we’ll choose our favourite design and send the winner a T-shirt and a mug with your winning artwork printed on it.

If you’d like to submit a piece of artwork for consideration, please use the form below before May 31st 2015.”

Why are some people left-handed? - Daniel M. Abrams

Why Are Some People Left-Handed? via It's Okay to be Smart

From a recent Lefty's email:

Post your favorite story about the trials and tribulations of being a lefty, with a picture, on the contest notice at the top of our Facebook site, and our Facebook fans will vote on it. The winner will receive $400 cash, and the 3 runners-up will receive $100 each in gift certificates to Lefty's. We're compiling a book of Left-Handed Stories, and will definitely include some of the most compelling entries.

Entries must be received by 11:59 August 12, Pacific Time. Winners will be chosen by Facebook votes up through the same time (11:59 August 12), but only one vote per IP address will be counted. YAY Lefties! We can't wait to hear your stories!

VIENNA, July 3 (UPI) --The vast majority of humans are right-handed. Only about ten percent are left-hand dominant. But what causes the ten percent to prefer their opposite set of digits? Scientists have long traded theories on the matter and argued whether genetics are at play.

Recently, in a survey of handedness involving 13,000 Germans and Austrians, researchers found that male southpaws are slightly more likely to be born in November, December and January than other months -- proof, they say, of a hormonal mechanism at work.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2014/07/03/Study-men-born-in-the-winter-more-likely-to-be-left-handed/2971404441177/#ixzz36u8XOEcG

Does the hand you write with influence your life choices? Right-handed people tend to prefer products and even foods on the same side as their lead hand

Psychologists from Chicago carried out a series of studies on handedness

Adults were shown an image on a left-hand page,  and another on the right

They were asked to rate the images for attractiveness and trustworthiness

Right-handed people awarded more positive traits to the right-hand image and vice versa for left-handed people

A preference also seen when selecting items in a catalogue and menu

When forced to use the opposite hand, this preference was switched

Ever wonder why most sports that involve a circular motion of any sort go counterclockwise? 

For example:

Athletics track races

Track bicycle races

Speed skating

Roller derby

The customary flow of people around an ice-skating rink

The normal direction of dancers moving around a dance floor

Motorcycle speedway

NASCAR racing

Horse racing

Greyhound racing

Do you think this gives lefties a disadvantage?

A new decade-long study from the Center for Handedness Research and The Zebra shows left-handed drivers cause fewer accidents.

“Because we drive on the right in this country, left-handed drivers may be used to a kind of constant revision of their instincts, keeping them more on their toes and ready to react to sudden threats,” says Dr. Haversham, who specializes in handedness research. “In addition, cars are designed with the right-handed driver in mind—think especially of the gear shift. This allows right-handed drivers to become complacent, while lefties are forced—as they are so often—to rely on their less dominant hand.”

After finding that left-handed people have better sex, a Swedish sex toy company has created a vibrator for right-handers that it claims will not only make them smarter, but also deliver a "left-handed" kind of orgasm.

Not only are left-handers often regarded as smarter and more creative than their right-handed counterparts, but apparently, they also have better sex: 86 percent of left-handers in a global survey by intimate lifestyle company Lelo said they’re highly satisfied with their sex lives, compared to a paltry 15 percent of right-handers.

Want to have your design on the next left-handed notebook sold by Lefty's Left-Hand Store? Here's your chance!

Our customers have asked for a left-handed notebook that doesn't mention being left-handed. We want to add a new notebook whose cover is purely a design with no message. 

We know lefties are creative, so we decided to give YOU a chance to design this notebook cover. See the outline below for our requirements.  We'll produce the winning design in time for fall. 

The winner will receive a $250 prize, and two runners up will receive $100 gift certificates to Lefty's. Send your entries to [email protected] by midnight, April 12, 2014. 

Left-handed people have different brains, and they are underrepresented in neuroscience studies, says Roel Willems and colleagues.

"Databases without left-handed people are not representative for the population and in view of the large number of genetic databases currently being set up, ignoring left-handed people is not wise," says Willems. The researchers are setting up a website, www.mpi.nl/handedness, to encourage left-handed people to participate in research.