Will prehistoric "superpowers" be passed down to you and me?

01

Most of the genes we once had have not disappeared

Those who read my article yesterday must have known that most of the genes we once had have not disappeared, but have been selectively turned off or ineffective. Of course, some genes have been lost. But those turned-off genes are not lying completely still, but will play a role in regulating other genes (we currently have about 20,000 to 30,000 genes, accounting for less than 10% of the length of our human genome).

This part can be found in UCSC Genome Browser Home through simple sequence comparison analysis .

The picture below is the species genome provided by UCSC. We can directly throw the genes or sequences we need to find into it and it will tell you the situation in these species.

Just post a picture. This can be compared on UCSC. The conservation of a cis-regulatory element in different species

vertebrate: vertebrate opossum: opossum chicken: chicken x tropicalis: tropical clawed frog zebrafish: zebrafish

If we need it someday, these genes can still be activated, but of course, natural evolution is too slow. We can use gene editing to achieve this.

02

Do we have all the genes?

Of course, we don’t have all the genes , such as the genes for flying, because we have not gone through the bird stage in the evolutionary path that has been discovered so far. However, wings and arms are homologous to a certain extent.

If you want to understand what superpowers you have, just imagine the state of the fetus during pregnancy. Of course, I am not talking about homologous evolution. I am proving it by the opposite. All our phenotypes and habits during pregnancy are controlled by gene expression.

For example, we can breathe without oxygen, we can swim comfortably in liquid without drowning, and we can even directly inhale and filter the substances in amniotic fluid like fish. These are all potentials we have. But these potentials will be gradually closed as we develop.

These genes are very old and can be traced back to the path from fish to amphibians to reptiles. There is a movie called "Waterworld" that can be viewed in this way.

Finally, we have to remind you that our ancestors were not the most outstanding ones in history, but the ones who laughed last. For example, in the dinosaur era, human ancestors were the size of mice.