Bananas and people, closer relatives than you think

It is often said that human beings share around half of our genes with a banana. The figure sounds like a joke, but it points to something real.

The explanation is that many basic functions of life (getting energy, copying DNA, repairing cells) are so ancient and so essential that they have barely changed in billions of years. The genes that control them are almost the same in a plant, a fungus or a person.

Comparing percentages of DNA between species so far apart is trickier than it looks, and the figures depend on how you measure. But the underlying idea holds: beneath very different forms, life reuses the same old solutions again and again.

Source: National Human Genome Research Institute