IF YOUR tO parents  bonded just o t be s  bonded in a preciselytimely manner, you  be s  done likes before tely, you  be here.

    Pusime and tral debts begin to add up. Go back just eigions to about time t Cimely couplings your existence depends.

    Continue furto time of Sors earnestly excic material in a  ually and miraculously, result in you.

    At ty generations ago, ting on your beo1,048,576. Five generations before t, and ted couplings your existence depends. By ty generations ago, yourtotal number of forebears—remember, t cousins and aunts and otalrelatives, but only parents and parents of parents in a line leading ineluctably to you—is overone billion (1,073,741,824, to be precise). If you go back sixty-four generations, to time oftive efforts your eventual existencedepends o approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, otal number of people who have ever lived.

    Clearly somet may interest you tolearn, is t your line is not pure. You couldn’t be  a little incest—actually quitea lot of incest—albeit at a genetically discreet remove. itors inyour background, tive from your moted ant cousin from your fat, if you are in a partnersry, t t you are at some level related. Indeed, if you look around you on abus or in a park or café or any cro of tives. s to you t  once: “Me, too!” In t literal andfundamental sense we are all family.

    e are also uncannily alike. Compare your genes  99.9 percent t is inydifferences in t remaining 0.1 percent—“rougide base