Take a gene from a mouse that’s responsible for creating the eye of that mouse, introduce it into a fruit fly larva, and it will still create an eye. A fruit fly eye .

Despite the fact that you have two creatures that haven’t shared a common ancestor for, at best estimates, 500 million years, you can still swap genetic material and the fly will embrace it like a long-lost brother.

About 60% of your genes are correlative to those in fruit flies. That figure rises to about 90 percent when you look at mice, and famously we share, depending on who you read, anywhere from 96 – 98% of our genetic material with chimpanzees, our nearest and dearest relatives. Take any random person you might run across in the course of a day, sharing a park bench, perhaps, or cutting you off on your morning commute, and 99.9% of…