The story was the same wherever researchers looked. They found that they could insert human DNA into certain cells of flies, and the flies would accept it as if it were their own.
同樣的事情無處不在。研究人員將人類DNA植入果蠅某些細胞中，果蠅最終接納了它，好像它是自己的基因似的。
Over 60 percent of human genes, it turns out, are fundamentally the same as those found in fruit flies. At least 90 percent correlate at some level to those found in mice. (We even have the same genes for making a tail, if only they would switch on.) In field after field, researchers found that whatever organism they were working on — whether nematode worms or human beings — they were often studying essentially the same genes. Life, it appeared, was drawn up from a single set of blueprints.
事實證明，60%以上的人類基因本質上與果蠅是一樣的。至少90%以上的人類基因在某程度上與老鼠基因相互關聯。（我們甚至擁有可以長出尾巴的同樣基因，要是它們活躍起來的話。）研究人員在一個又一個的領域中發現，他們不管用什么生物做實驗——無論是線蟲還是人類——他們所研究的基因基本上是一樣的。生命似乎就出于同一張藍圖。
Further probings revealed the existence of a clutch of master control genes, each directing the development of a section of the body, which were dubbed homeotic (from a Greek word meaning "similar") or hox genes. Hox genes answered the long-bewildering question of how billions of embryonic cells, all arising from a single fertilized egg and carrying identical DNA, know where to go and what to do — that this one should become a liver cell, this one a stretchy neuron, this one a bubble of blood, this one part of the shimmer on a beating wing. It is the hox genes that instruct them, and they do it for all organisms in much the same way.
科學研究迸一步揭示了一組掌控基因的存在，每一種控制著人體某一部分的發育。這種基因被稱為變異同源基因（希臘語“相似”的意思），或同源基因。同源基因回答了長期以來困擾人們的問題：數以十億計的胚胎細胞都來源于一個受精卵，并且攜帶完全相同的DNA，它們怎么知道去往哪個方向，該做些什么——其中某一個變成了肝臟細胞，另一個變成了伸縮性神經元，又有一個變成了血泡，還有一個變成了拍動的羽翼上的光點。原來是同源基因對它們發出了指令。它們對于所有的生物都以同樣的方式發出指令。
Interestingly, the amount of genetic material and how it is organized doesn't necessarily, or even generally, reflect the level of sophistication of the creature that contains it.
有趣的是，基因的數量及其組合方式并不一定反映攜帶它的生物的復雜程度，甚至總的來說不反映。
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