The Interesting Thing Human Beings Have In Common With Bananas

Mankind is a unique beast. We have debated for years about our origins, trying to determine if we walked from the jungles or crawled from the sea. We seem to share certain traits with the good Lord's second-most strongest warriors for Christ: the monkey. Man and monkey both share the traits of opposable thumbs, upright mobility, and our amusement at the ever-popular shiny object. For years, scientists have scoured the Earth, searching for the elusive "missing link" that will finally settle the debate about whether or not we evolved from primates or came from something much more spiritual. 

But, a recent discovery may have challenged all the other theories and suggestions of primordial soups and genetic casserole dishes in the oven of creation, one that beats the band in how absurd it may seem, and one that may seem rather "a-peeling" to those who can believe it. Perhaps man has more in common with it's hairy friends than we thought, though it may be what the monkey eats with which we share our closest bond.

The human model of DNA is designed of nearly 3 billion base pairs. Of those billions of pairs, blocks, and other genetic spit and glue, only a tiny amount of said materials truly belong to us. During his TED Talk, physicist and entrepreneur Riccardo Sabatini demonstrated that a printed version of your entire genetic code would occupy some 262,000 pages, with only about 500 of those pages being truly unique to mankind. That's because large chunks of genome, or a "genetic instructions manual," perform similar functions across the animal kingdom — essentially like universal blueprints that can be adapted to anything. This means we are genetically similar to a monkeys, cats, mice, cows and, perhaps most intriguing of all: the banana (via Business Insider).

No, you are not crazy. We share 40-60% of the same DNA as that thing you buy in a grocery store. Don't worry, though, you are not going to turn brown just because someone left you atop the microwave for a few days instead of the fridge. According to Dr. Lawrence Brody (via How Stuff Works), DNA can be thought of like a blueprint for a house, and protein products as the actual house. The blueprint for a banana may be similar, but it would call for very different designs, just like how human DNA calls for different layouts and plans.

Though, much like the humble banana, we also have a soft, mushy inside and the innate fear of chimp attacks. It all makes sense now.