• Question: Does everything have `genes`

    Asked by Finn to Barbara, Matt, Ravinder, Sophie, Tristan on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Matthew Moore

      Matthew Moore answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Every living thing has genes yes! Viruses, bacteria, mammals, plants, the lot!

      That means that trees, strawberries, E.coli, sharks, cats and humans all have genes. All gene means is a unit of heredity however, what’s even more amazing is we all use DNA for genes! This suggests that all known life on this planet is descendent of a single, universal common ancestor ~3.5Bn years ago!! and that life has only originated once that we know of, anywhere!

      We even share some of our genes with other organisms (or our DNA at least) including 50% with bananas!!

    • Photo: Sophie Robinson

      Sophie Robinson answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Yes every living thing has genes. Even the smallest organisms like viruses, plants and the largest organisms like whales all have genes.

      And because all organisms have at least some genes that are the same, this is evidence for our evolution from a common bacterial ancestor billions of years ago. For example, although bacteria and humans are now very different, bacteria are only one cell, whereas humans are many cells for a start, we still share 7% of our DNA with bacteria.

      Because the DNA of humans and bacteria has much the same structure, we can use bacteria to produce proteins like insulin for us. This way we can make lots of insulin from billions of bacteria and use it to treat people with diabetes.

    • Photo: Barbara Shih

      Barbara Shih answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      Not everything have genes – rocks, clouds, robots ..etc don’t have genes!

      I agree with what Matt and Sophie that genes are essential product from evolution! Genes are are good way of recording “recciepes” for making things from molecules in the surroundings.

Comments