Life on Earth is wonderfully diverse, with a multitude of life forms, structures
and evolutionary mechanisms. However, there are two aspects of life that are
universal --- shared by all known organisms. These are the genetic code,
which governs how DNA is converted into the proteins making up your body,
and the unexpected left-handedness of the amino acids in your body. One
would expect that your amino acids were a mixture of left and right-handed
molecules, but none are right handed! In this talk, I describe how these
universal aspects of biology can be understood as arising from evolution, but
generalised to an era where genes, species and individuality had not yet
emerged. I will also discuss to what extent one can find general principles of
biology that can apply to all life in the universe, and what this would mean for
the nascent field of astrobiology.
