While it might seem natural to begin with the genesis of life, that topic, still unsettled, is better approached after exploring the quintessential molecular qualities of life itself. And for someone like me, having spent the past thirty years pursuing a unified theory of nature’s fundamental forces, such an exploration reveals a stunning biological unity. We don’t know the exact number of distinct species on earth, microbes to manatees, but studies have provided estimates ranging from a low in the millions to a high in the trillions. Whatever the exact number, it’s huge. The wealth of
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