Friday, April 17, 2009

Your inner fish

Genomic studies show that you're more like a fish than you thought. No, not because you're slimy and cold-blooded, because some of your genes haven't changed in a hundred million years.

Is this anything besides scientific trivia? Oh yes, it's a powerful insight that underpins great advances in understanding important things like why your spouse bugs you so much when (s)he leaves socks lying around the house. Er, ok, it's important if your an academic biologist.

But hey, it's like fine art, it's useful for it's own sake. You have an "inner fish" and it looks a lot like that guy in the photo (above right). And the part that's the most similar is the brain. So much for our highfalutin' notions about ourselves.

1 comment:

WhySharksMatter said...

Some of us are slimy and cold blooded.