Cephalopods like squids may be as close to an alien intelligence as we’ll ever know, with a diverse evolutionary lineage from a wholly different world beneath the waves.

Yet despite our uniquely developed brains and bodies, we are all works in progress through a common process.

Humans and other animals constantly undergo an ephemeral, reversible transcriptomic remixing through what’s known as ‘adenosine deaminase acting on RNA’ or ADAR-mediated RNA editing.