It could, ultimately answer questions about the nature of life itself. It could also answer riddles about addictions such as gambling, or provide treatments for jet-lag, or sleep disorders, or mental illness. But the chiefs of both teams warn that there is a long way to go - even if there are only 26,000 genes to examine. It is a very basic set of instructions and we have got to learn how our growing bodies interpret these instructions to make a human being. Hundreds of genes have been smuggled into the human chromosomes by bacteria.
Humans have only twice as many genes as a simple worm or a fly.
There is no scientific basis for race. Genes are more than just simple commands for making single proteins. Most mutations occur in males. And the male Y chromosome is very small. The 30,000 or so genes in 23 chromosomes could make 250,000 proteins available to the 100 million million cells in any adult human.