1. All species in all three domains share 23 universal proteins, though the proteins' DNA sequences—instructions written in the As, Cs, Gs, and Ts of DNA bases
2. Just as the tree of life illustrates, all organisms, both living and extinct, are related.
3. Every branch of the tree represents a species, and every fork separating one species from another represents the common ancestor shared by these species.
4. While the tree's countless forks and far-reaching branches clearly show that relatedness among species varies greatly, it is also easy to see that every pair of species share a common ancestor from some point in evolutionary history.