07/28/2026
Buttholes are Important! Your fingers used to be a fish bu****le. The End. ;)
Haha Just kidding!...about this being the end, but not about your fingers!
Researchers at the University of Geneva uncovered the DNA switch that controls the formation of your fingers and toes, and it is the SAME DNA switch that controlled the formation of fish cloacas (bu****les!) 380 million years ago.
Originally researchers postulated that this DNA switch found in human and fish would correlate fish fins and human fingers and toes... logical right?? Nope! lol not to nature! When they removed the stretch of DNA that was the “DNA switch” in fish, the cloaca lost its gene activity while the fins carried on unbothered. 😳 So turns out...
Buttholes are important!
Researchers, as they tend to be, both saw it coming and still couldn’t believe it : “The fact that these genes [human and fish] are involved is a striking example of how evolution innovates, recycling the old to make the new,” says developmental geneticist Denis Duboule in the University of Geneva’s announcement. Thus, nature earns the title of the world’s most Brazen Recycler.
And Geneticist Aurélie Hintermann said, “The common feature between the cloaca and the digits is that they represent terminal parts.” The terminal parts (aka fingers & bu****les)... are quite possibly the most useful parts.
This gives new meaning to the old idiom: we begin as we intend to end.
Speaking of important bu****les doing critical work: the boat’s own bu****le (the head) broke this month and very nearly ended my career as dive boat owner. The full justifiable meltdown is on Instagram, and yes, I filmed it:
PS. I giggled an entirely inappropriate amount while writing this lol
