The Creepy Science Hidden Inside Your DNA | You Are Not Just You

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listener, there's something else hidden within your DNA story,

0:05 Speaker 1: something that quietly challenges the idea that you are entirely

0:09 Speaker 1: self contained. We tend to think of our bodies as

0:13 Speaker 1: closed systems, separate from everyone else, defined by boundaries that

0:18 Speaker 1: cannot be crossed, that what is ours stays ours, that

0:22 Speaker 1: our biology belongs only to us. But in reality, your

0:26 Speaker 1: body is constantly interacting with the outside world in ways

0:30 Speaker 1: you cannot see, and sometimes those interactions leave behind traces

0:34 Speaker 1: that linger longer than you would ever expect. After physical contact,

0:39 Speaker 1: even something as intimate as intercourse, your body can temporarily

0:43 Speaker 1: contain cells that are not your own. These cells exist

0:46 Speaker 1: only briefly, moving through the body before being recognized as

0:50 Speaker 1: foreign and cleared away by your immune system. They do

0:53 Speaker 1: not integrate, they do not alter your DNA, and they

0:57 Speaker 1: do not change who you are. Your genetic code remains intact, unchanged,

1:03 Speaker 1: still entirely yours. And yet the fact that your body

1:06 Speaker 1: can momentarily hold something from another person is a quiet

1:10 Speaker 1: reminder that the boundary between self and other is not

1:13 Speaker 1: as absolute as it feels. But pregnancy changes that boundary

1:19 Speaker 1: entirely in a way that is far more profound and

1:23 Speaker 1: far more permanent. During pregnancy, the separation between two individuals

1:28 Speaker 1: begins to blur, not metaphorically but physically. Cells begin to

1:34 Speaker 1: move between mother and child, traveling across the placenta in

1:37 Speaker 1: both directions. Fetal cells enter the mother's bloodstream and move

1:42 Speaker 1: throughout her body, embedding themselves in tissues, in organs, and

1:46 Speaker 1: even in the brain. This phenomenon is known as microchimerism,

1:51 Speaker 1: and it is not rare, nor is it temporary in

1:54 Speaker 1: the way most people would assume, because those cells do

1:57 Speaker 1: not always leave. Scientists have found that fetal cells can

2:01 Speaker 1: remain inside a mother's body for years, even decades, long

2:06 Speaker 1: after the pregnancy has ended and long after the child

2:09 Speaker 1: has grown. These cells are genetically distinct, carrying the DNA

2:14 Speaker 1: of another person, and yet they continue to exist within

2:17 Speaker 1: her body as if they belong there. At the same time,

2:21 Speaker 1: maternal cells pass into the developing child, meaning that the

2:26 Speaker 1: exchange is not one sided but mutual. Each carries something

2:30 Speaker 1: of the other forward, not as memory or emotion, but

2:34 Speaker 1: as something physical and measurable, something that remains long after

2:39 Speaker 1: the moment has passed. And while your DNA itself does

2:43 Speaker 1: not change, your body may still carry the biological traces

2:47 Speaker 1: of another person for years to come, quietly existing beneath

2:51 Speaker 1: the surface without your awareness, which leads to a thought

2:54 Speaker 1: that lingers just a little longer than it should, a

2:57 Speaker 1: question that feels simple but become harder to answer the

3:01 Speaker 1: more you consider it. If pieces of someone else can

3:04 Speaker 1: live inside you for decades, existing within your body as

3:08 Speaker 1: part of your physical reality, then where exactly do you

3:12 Speaker 1: end and where do they begin. You may have heard

3:15 Speaker 1: the idea that people whose ancestors survived the plague are

3:18 Speaker 1: somehow immune to AIDS, but the truth is a little different,

3:21 Speaker 1: and in some ways even more interesting. There is a

3:25 Speaker 1: rare genetic mutation called CCR five delta thirty two that

3:29 Speaker 1: changes how certain immune cells work and HIV, the virus

3:33 Speaker 1: that causes AIDS, normally uses that pathway to enter the

3:37 Speaker 1: body's cells, but in people with this mutation, that door

3:41 Speaker 1: is essentially locked, making it very difficult for the virus

3:44 Speaker 1: to infect them, and in rare cases, almost impossible. Scientists

3:50 Speaker 1: notice that this mutation shows up more often in people

3:53 Speaker 1: of European descent, which led to the theory that it

3:56 Speaker 1: might have spread because it helped people survive major historical

4:00 Speaker 1: diseases like the Black Death, but more recent research suggests

4:04 Speaker 1: that may not be the full story, because the plague

4:07 Speaker 1: bacteria doesn't seem to use the same pathway, and it's

4:10 Speaker 1: more likely that another disease, possibly smallpox, played a bigger

4:15 Speaker 1: role in spreading this mutation over time. So it's not

4:19 Speaker 1: that entire groups of people are immune to AIDS, and

4:23 Speaker 1: it's not directly because of the plague, but rather that

4:26 Speaker 1: a small number of people today carry a genetic change

4:29 Speaker 1: shaped by diseases from the distant past that can still

4:33 Speaker 1: protect them in a very real way. Now, I want

4:37 Speaker 1: you to consider something for a moment. Everything you believe

4:40 Speaker 1: yourself to be. Your face, your thoughts, your personality, your history,

4:46 Speaker 1: every part of your identity is built on a code,

4:51 Speaker 1: a sequence, a microscopic instruction manual coiled inside nearly every

4:57 Speaker 1: cell of your body. Your DNA. It feels personal, unique,

5:03 Speaker 1: entirely yours. But what if I told you it isn't.

5:08 Speaker 1: What if your DNA is less like a signature and

5:11 Speaker 1: more like a shared document edited over millions of years

5:16 Speaker 1: by forces you've never met, Because once you start looking closely,

5:20 Speaker 1: the story of your DNA becomes far stranger than you

5:24 Speaker 1: were ever meant to realize. Let's start with something that

5:28 Speaker 1: sounds almost like a joke, but isn't You share roughly

5:31 Speaker 1: sixty percent of your DNA with a banana, not metaphorically,

5:36 Speaker 1: not loosely, on a molecular level, a significant portion of

5:40 Speaker 1: the genetic code that keeps you alive, the instructions for

5:44 Speaker 1: basic cellular processes is nearly identical to that of a

5:49 Speaker 1: fruit sitting on your kitchen counter. Scientists have known this

5:53 Speaker 1: for years because life at its core is built from

5:56 Speaker 1: shared building blocks. The genes responsible for fundamental functions like

6:01 Speaker 1: cell growth, metabolism, and replication are so ancient, so essential

6:07 Speaker 1: that they've been conserved across vast evolutionary distances, which means that,

6:12 Speaker 1: in a very real way, part of what makes you

6:15 Speaker 1: human is also what makes the banana a banana. And

6:20 Speaker 1: yet that's just the beginning, because hidden inside your DNA

6:24 Speaker 1: are fragments that don't even belong to you or to

6:27 Speaker 1: humanity at all. They belong to viruses, ancient ones. Over

6:33 Speaker 1: the course of millions of years, viruses infected our ancestors,

6:37 Speaker 1: inserting their genetic material into the human genome. Most of

6:41 Speaker 1: the time, these sequences became inactive dormant, but they never

6:45 Speaker 1: left Today. These remnants are known as endogenous retroviruses, and

6:50 Speaker 1: they make up a surprising portion of your DNA. You

6:54 Speaker 1: are quite literally carrying the genetic echoes of infections that

6:58 Speaker 1: happened before humans even existed. Some scientists believe these viral

7:03 Speaker 1: sequences have even played a role in human evolution, helping

7:07 Speaker 1: shape functions like the placenta, which means something that once

7:11 Speaker 1: invaded the body may now be essential to life itself. Now,

7:16 Speaker 1: imagine something even stranger. What if you weren't made from

7:19 Speaker 1: just one set of DNA. There are rare cases where

7:23 Speaker 1: a single person carries two completely different genetic codes in

7:27 Speaker 1: their body. This phenomenon, known as chymerism, can occur when

7:31 Speaker 1: a developing embryo absorbs a twin in the womb. The

7:35 Speaker 1: result is one individual with two distinct sets of DNA,

7:40 Speaker 1: sometimes in different parts of the body. Blood may tell

7:43 Speaker 1: one genetic story, skin may tell another. There have even

7:47 Speaker 1: been cases where DNA tests have challenged parenthood, only to

7:51 Speaker 1: reveal that the person being tested carried multiple genetic identities

7:56 Speaker 1: within them. Imagine that not just one blueprint, but two,

8:01 Speaker 1: and even the DNA you do have isn't as fixed

8:04 Speaker 1: as you might think. Through a process known as epigenetics,

8:08 Speaker 1: your genes can be turned on or off based on

8:12 Speaker 1: your environment, your behavior, even your experiences diet, stress, trauma.

8:19 Speaker 1: These don't just affect how you feel. They can influence

8:22 Speaker 1: how your genes are expressed. Chemical markers attach themselves to

8:26 Speaker 1: your DNA, altering how it functions without changing the underlying code.

8:32 Speaker 1: It's as if your life experiences are quietly editing how

8:35 Speaker 1: your body reads its own instructions, and in some cases,

8:41 Speaker 1: those changes may even be passed on to future generations,

8:45 Speaker 1: which means this next thought becomes difficult to ignore. You

8:48 Speaker 1: may be carrying traits that never appear. Hidden within your

8:53 Speaker 1: DNA are instructions that may never activate during your lifetime.

8:57 Speaker 1: Traits that remain silent, can doitions that never manifest, features

9:02 Speaker 1: that stay buried, and yet they can still be passed down.

9:07 Speaker 1: Your DNA is filled with possibilities that may never become reality,

9:12 Speaker 1: but are still very much there waiting. Even when DNA

9:17 Speaker 1: begins the same, it doesn't stay that way. Identical twins,

9:21 Speaker 1: for example, start with nearly identical genetic code, but over

9:25 Speaker 1: time differences emerge. Small mutations environmental influences epigenetic changes. These

9:33 Speaker 1: tiny variations accumulate, making each twin more unique with every

9:38 Speaker 1: passing year, which means that even the closest genetic match

9:42 Speaker 1: possible slowly becomes something different. And this is happening to

9:46 Speaker 1: you right now. Your DNA is not static. It changes,

9:52 Speaker 1: cells divide, errors occur, tiny mutations slip into the code.

9:57 Speaker 1: Most are harmless, some go unown, but occasionally these changes matter.

10:04 Speaker 1: They can influence health development, even the course of a life.

10:08 Speaker 1: You are not the exact same genetic person you were

10:11 Speaker 1: years ago. You are an evolving version, and some parts

10:15 Speaker 1: of you are unimaginably old. Certain genes within your body

10:19 Speaker 1: date back hundreds of millions of years, long before humans,

10:23 Speaker 1: before mammals, before anything that would resemble you. These ancient

10:28 Speaker 1: sequences have been passed down generation after generation, surviving extinction events,

10:35 Speaker 1: environmental shifts, and evolutionary leaps. Inside you are pieces of

10:41 Speaker 1: life that existed long before humanity had a name. But

10:45 Speaker 1: here's where things take an even stranger turn. When you

10:48 Speaker 1: consider all the genetic material associated with your body, not

10:52 Speaker 1: just your human DNA, but the DNA of the trillions

10:56 Speaker 1: of microorganisms living within you, The balance shifts Bacteria microbes,

11:02 Speaker 1: tiny organisms that live in your gut, on your skin,

11:06 Speaker 1: throughout your system, collectively contribute an enormous amount of genetic material. Together,

11:12 Speaker 1: they form part of what scientists call the human microbiome,

11:16 Speaker 1: and their influence is not passive. They affect digestion, immunity,

11:20 Speaker 1: even mood, which leads to a question that feels almost unsettling.

11:25 Speaker 1: How much of you is actually you? And finally, perhaps

11:30 Speaker 1: the most haunting idea of all your experiences, your stress,

11:34 Speaker 1: your trauma, your environment may leave marks on your DNA

11:39 Speaker 1: that don't just affect you, but those who come after you.

11:43 Speaker 1: Through epigenetic changes, certain responses can be passed down, influencing

11:48 Speaker 1: how future generations react to the world. It's not memory, exactly,

11:53 Speaker 1: but it's something close, a biological echo, a trace of

11:57 Speaker 1: what came before. So what does this all mean, dear listener?

12:01 Speaker 1: It means that you are not a singular, isolated being.

12:05 Speaker 1: You are a collection, a continuation, a living archive of

12:09 Speaker 1: ancient life, viral remnants, environmental influences, and genetic possibilities. You

12:16 Speaker 1: are shaped not just by your choices, but by millions

12:19 Speaker 1: of years of events you will never remember. You are

12:22 Speaker 1: not just you. You are everything that came before you, but

12:26 Speaker 1: before you spiral too far into an identity crisis. Tonight's

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13:27 Speaker 2: your DNA is already a mystery, why not make it

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13:33 Speaker 1: So, dear listener, as you go about your day, remember this.

13:37 Speaker 1: Every cell in your body carries a story. You didn't

13:40 Speaker 1: write a code, you didn't create a history. You didn't live,

13:45 Speaker 1: but still carry, and somewhere within that code are pieces

13:49 Speaker 1: of things you will never fully understand. Sleep well, and

13:54 Speaker 1: remember you are not alone, not even within yourself. It

13:59 Speaker 1: kind of gives I need some me time, a whole

14:02 Speaker 1: new meaning

15:02 Speaker 2: Behind them, had had