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It’s a pretty safe presumption that hands evolved from fins, since fish evolved long before anything remotely resembling an opposable thumb. Now, a group of Spanish researchers has demonstrated a genetic expression that hints at how it happened. The group, led by Dr José Luis Gómez-Skarmeta of Spain’s CSIC-Universidad Pablo de Olavide-Junta de Andalucía in Seville, found that zebrafish injected with a mouse gene, hoxd13, developed leg-like limbs where fins should be. This indicates that the hoxd13 gene – which occurs in the fish, but at lower levels than in mice – helped drive the genetic changes that eventually become arms, legs, hands and feet.