Almost everyone naturally turns left when walking—and we still have no idea why

This story began, like so many in the history of science, with something we were not looking for. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were studying a practical question: How do people move around in an enclosed space when you ask them to keep apart from one another? Watching the footage time after time, we noticed something odd: Almost every participant walked in loops that turned in the same direction, always counterclockwise. Stranger still, none of them seemed to have noticed they were doing it.

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