Over this immense spectrum, life uses essentially the same basic building blocks and processes to create an amazing variety of forms, functions, and dynamical behaviors. This is a profound testament to the power of natural selection and evolutionary dynamics. All of life functions by transforming energy from physical or chemical sources into organic molecules that are metabolized to build, maintain, and reproduce complex, highly organized systems. This is accomplished by the operation of two distinct but closely interacting systems: the genetic code, which stores and processes the information
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