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Item:
The uniformity of the earth's life,
more astonishing than its diversity,
is accountable by the high probability
that we derived, originally, from some single cell,
fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled.

It is from the progeny of this parent cell
that we take our looks;
we still share genes around,
and the resemblance of the enzymes
of grasses to those of whales is
a family resemblance.

Lewis Thomas, Full text: Lives of a cell

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