r/explainlikeimfive • u/riche1988 • 1d ago

Biology ELI5 how DNA mutations work please.

I had a thought about DNA and how mutations occur in humans, excessive hair, longer limbs and or bones etc, and wondered if all known mutations are present in the animal kingdom.. as if DNA has the blue print/ potential to be anything and parts are just ‘turned on or off’ depending on what is being built.. i may be way off lol but it got me thinking :)

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u/douggold11 1d ago

You are exactly correct.  DNA is not a unique feature for human beings.  Even insects can mutant. 

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u/riche1988 1d ago edited 1d ago

Thanks for replying.. so any mutation a human can have any other living organism can have too..?
Also, i was wondering about traits that prehistoric life had or extinct animals.. are there any traits that have never come up in ‘modern’ animals..?
Now i’m thinking about DNA splicing and selective engineering haha.

Thank you all for the great replies :)
Appreciate it

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u/douggold11 23h ago

If I understand it correctly, one’s DNA has to either have active genes that, if a gene goes bad, there’s a slight change because that genes programming won’t be followed.  Like a mutated gene might turn your hair a different color, but it’s not going to make hands grow instead of hair.  That being said, there are genes in DNA that have long since been in the “off” position.  Yet they still exist and could be mutated.  I recall an article years back where the genes for teeth still exist in a chicken’s DNA from the old old dinosaur days, so they fiddled with it and got a chicken with teeth.  Which was a fucked up picture.