We've been without handshakes for a full year now. How much does it matter whether or not we get this back, basically? Well, I think a lot of people are missing touch. Some people who are really happy to be gone, be done with touch, but I do think they're a minority. But the thing is it will come back if history's taught as anything with regards to handshakes and pandemics and epidemics, it does come back.
Friends do it, strangers do it and so do chimpanzees - and it's not just deeply embedded in our history and culture, it may even be written in our DNA. The humble handshake, it turns out, has a rich and surprising history. In this week's episode palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to science broadcaster Helen Czerski about a funny and fascinating voyage of discovery - from the handshake's origins (at least seven million years ago) all the way to its sudden disappearance in March 2020.
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