The more we find out about genomes, the more humiliating the news they bring us. The human genome turns out to be profoundly ordinary. We have known for decades that human beings have one fewer chromosome than chimpanzees, which should have been ample warning. We have known for years that grasshoppers have three times as much DNA per cell as we do, deep sea shrimps ten times, salamanders 20 times and African lungfish a staggering 40 times. But we still kidded ourselves until just the last few years that human beings would prove to have more genes, arranged in a more sophisticated way, than most other creatures. How else to explain our exquisite brains?

We have 25,000 genes (or recipes for protein molecules) which is the same as a mouse, just 6,000 more than a microscopic nematode worm and 15,000 fewer than a rice plant. However sophisticated our brains are, it is not reflected in our genes. This has led some to suggest that we have been exaggerating the role of genes in shaping our brains. In fact, it reminds us that recipes are more than lists of ingredients. How those ingredients are cooked is also crucial. And the instructions for cooking up a body are hidden in the genome too - between the genes themselves.

A beehive is a collaborative enterprise on far more levels than first appears.
—Matt Ridley