Science says that our DNA is 85% similar to mice, 61% similar to fruit fly, and even 60% similar to banana, etc., then, we’re so much different in appearance. How does the remaining %, etc. able to make us who we are as different from other species we’re genetically similar to.
In: Biology
DNA is a huge thing. Even a small percentage, say 10% is a massive amount. You probably share like 98% of your makeup with your siblings, but you’re brother or sister is very different from you. You can even tell identical twins apart.
The basic building blocks of dna and matter in general are all the same for everyone and everything. So a space shuttle shares the same building blocks as a chair in your backyard. It’s all just steel and aluminum and plastic. I don’t have exact figures but they could share 50% or even greater. But they aren’t anything alike.
When you consider the basic building blocks of things similarities become way more obvious but even less useful to describe something. It gets too basic. Look at words. Block and clock have totally different meanings, but they share 80% of their basic parts. Or better yet, “minute,” a unit of time measurement equal to 60 seconds, and “minute” a description of something very small or “minute” 1/60th of one degree of an angle. All three are very different yet share 100% of the basic ingredients. A pickup truck, a tank and a Ferrari are all just a motor, a body and some seats, theoretically they are all identical but they totally aren’t.
Yes those examples are a bit of a stretch but hopefully it helps you understand the principle. We all have carbon in us, but there is so much more than just basic building blocks.
The short answer is that DNA is pretty huge and even the small remaining percent is quite significant. A lot of the DNA we share governs things that all living things do. Just to make a cell-shaped cell takes an incredible amount of DNA.
But the different stuff is interesting and also incredibly case specific. There is a gene family (Chunk of DNA) called Hox that controls the arrangement of animals on a head-tail axis that we obviously don’t share with bananas but we do share with mice.
A gene is a chunk of DNA that contains the instructions to build a protein (i.e. a simple biological machine). This protein can produce pigment and alter hair colour, or it can regulate other proteins and genes and have a massive effect.
I hope that helps. If you have more specific questions, ask away!
It’s a bit like saying “you house and the Empire State Building share 80% DNA.” It’s mostly building blocks and preceded instructions on how to handle food, oxygen, sunlight, etc. That 20% is the paint job.
A lot of that common DNA is vestigial, ancient, or redundant, and doesn’t really get used. Only a smaller portion is actively expressed.
You underestimate how incredibly similar to a mouse. 4 limbs, hair, brain inside skull, spinal cord protected by vertebrae, roughly similar skeletal structure (except you don’t have a tail anymore), placentas, bearing live young, which are then fed milk, etc. All the diferences between a human and a mouse are very tiny compared to the similarities; I am surprised we only share 85% of the DNA and not more than 90+.
Because the human Genome is made of approximately 3 billion base pairs of DNA, 15 % difference is still very significant. 15 % of 3 billion is still 450 million, so that explains the differences between us and bananas and mice.
When a number is so significant, even 1.5 % ( Here, that would still be 45 million ) is a lot.
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