We learned about Zebrafish and how they have 70% of our DNA they use zebrafish for testing sometimes to see if they can heal humans because they have 70% of our genes so they use them to test if something can cure the human. and they have different stripes and they grow really really fast and there eggs are transparent too.They eat zooplankton, phytoplankton, insects insect larvae worms.
Hi Lennox,
ReplyDeleteThat is a good question you raised about why scientists use zebrafish (70% identical to humans) and not monkeys (90%) identical. The main reason is that for a lot of scientific research, studying how cells function and communicate, this is easier and a lot cheaper to do with fish. Also, people are much more concerned about not causing harm to monkeys because they presumably experience things (such as pain) much the way we do. On the other hand, people are less concerned about tiny zebrafish (as we catch and eat fish all the time). However, it is also true that fish feel pain, so even for work on zebrafish, scientists have to get approval to do their research.
We can also get a lot of important scientific information from organisms that are even less related to us. In particular, thousands of scientists around the world work on the fruit fly (Drosophila) and a tiny soil worm (C. elegans) because how these organisms develop and work has many similarities to human biology, with the same genes often having the same function, even though our last common ancestor on the tree of life might be 700 million years ago.