I’ve long suspected that the reason so many things evolve into crab-like shapes is because the microorganisms in a given environment actually influence how DNA gets written, and that the macroorganism is not actually evolving independently, but is actually an ecosystem.

My idea would explain why those animals that live around us start to develop traits which are like ours-- not that the traits that define us are actually our traits alone, but that they are traits which come from the microorganisms that we pick up from the environment and which breed like crazy within us and then which get pooped out into our environment and multiply and go into other animals.

And I’ve given a lot of consideration of what this means for doing things like washing your hands.

It’s really interesting to read stories like this, because it matches up with what I had suspected.

Life, uh…finds a way.