<p>The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study from the <a href="https://www.stowers.org/" target="_blank">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> discovered that the hindbrain—the part of the brain controlling vital functions like blood pressure and heart rate—of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit.</p>