[HN Gopher] Mitochondria Are Alive
___________________________________________________________________
Mitochondria Are Alive
Author : mailyk
Score : 335 points
Date : 2024-11-08 17:39 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asimov.press)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asimov.press)
| kranke155 wrote:
| I wonder what mitochondria dream about. Do they have elections?
| Politics? Their own understanding of the universe, that somehow
| ends on the skin surface?
| addicted wrote:
| Alive != sentient
| tkzed49 wrote:
| debatable
| snorin wrote:
| even "dead=!sentient" remains debatable
| berbec wrote:
| > I wonder what mitochondria dream about.
|
| ATP sheep.
| Teever wrote:
| As a layman I'm kind of baffled by the enduring pop-sci interest
| in mitochondria.
|
| To me the far more interesting organelle is the ribosome. This
| elegant self-replicating machine that is highly conserved across
| lifeforms is fascinating and much closer to the origin of life
| than mitochondria.
|
| How did ribosomes evolve? Are the ribosomes that we see in modern
| organisms the first design that did evolve? Why are they highly
| conserved?
|
| Are ribosomes alive as well?
| adastra22 wrote:
| The mitochondria and their dysfunction are likely the basis of
| most aspects of aging, so an intensive interest in them is
| understandable.
| GordonS wrote:
| Also thought to be involved with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
| (CFS/ME).
| Teever wrote:
| That's a debatable statement and it doesn't explain the
| public appeal of mitochondria over ribosomes that predates
| recent research on the relationship between mitochondria and
| aging.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Why are you insisting on this comparison to ribosomes?
| They're both interesting.
| rbanffy wrote:
| All organelles are valid. This is not a competition. Both
| mitochondria and ribosomes are cool in different ways.
| Teever wrote:
| I'm just wondering why we always see pop-sci mitochondria
| content but no ribosome videos.
|
| I think it's the catchy nickname "powerhouse of the
| cell."
|
| Ribosomes don't have a catch nickname so they get a lot
| less content produced about them.
|
| If I was a highschool biology teacher I'd probably call
| them "The assembly line of life." That would stick in
| people's minds I bet.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Then go ahead. Make those videos. Sell that vision.
| There's no one stopping you except you.
| Teever wrote:
| I don't get the adversarial tone about this.
|
| My intention in asking the question isn't to create
| animosity. I'm just curious why the thing that I've
| observed is a thing.
| lostemptations5 wrote:
| It's interesting, could you expand on thus?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Todays ribosomes are not alive by any definition.
|
| But it's possbile they are descendants of some self-replicating
| self-catalyzed RNA chain (RNA world)
| jamiek88 wrote:
| They are both very interesting. I don't think there's
| necessarily interest in one are the expense of another?
| francisofascii wrote:
| Mitochondrial health is considered a strong proxy for overall
| health.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| I expect such lively news to make this comment section the
| powerhouse of the front page. :^)
| cmiller1 wrote:
| It's funny that this phrase has had such staying strength,
| while the key word in it, "powerhouse," has fallen out of
| fashion. The more modern American English way to phrase it
| would be "the power plant of the cell."
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Can you describe the distinction?
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Distinction: I am a millennial, and actually had to go look
| up just now what a "powerhouse" is. I am familiar with the
| term in its metaphorical sense, but was heretofore
| unacquainted with the literal definition. "Power plant" or
| "power station" would, yes, be more immediately understood
| by my generation. The phrase "Mitochondria is the
| powerhouse of the cell" would read to modern children like
| saying "The mitochondrion is the rock star of the cell."
|
| These things do happen. I was in my 30s before I learned
| what the "firewall" of a car was...
| mkaic wrote:
| Anecdotally, I feel like I've heard "powerhouse" used
| somewhat regularly when describing impressive people, i.e.:
| "Such-and-such is an absolute _powerhouse_ on the field ", or
| "That person is so productive, they're a _powerhouse_ ".
|
| So maybe the original usage has been subsumed by "power
| plant", but I think the word has alternative meanings which
| persist.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I'm pretty sure people still talk about powerhouses of
| hydroelectric dams
| dendrite9 wrote:
| That's an interesting thought, I haven't picked up on it but
| you're right. Most of my associations with powerhouse are
| from trails or ares that used to have powerhouses and now
| have empty buildings, ruins or traces left over. I do think
| about powerhouses in the context of dams but that is likely
| leftover from an earlier time.
| hildolfr wrote:
| It kind of just shifted distinctions.
|
| Powerhouse is a common way to describe an athlete, a high
| performance engine, or a very strong stock buy -- it has just
| moved away from the infrastructural uses.
| wwwtyro wrote:
| I'm sure there's a fantastic midi-chlorian joke here.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| the mitochondria are alive, and they're doing just fine
| netcraft wrote:
| this is the first ive heard of mitochondria replicating
| separately and distinctly from the host cell, how fascinating!
|
| Are we saying that mitochondria have their own life cycle inside
| of a cell? living/dying/replicating in the span of the "life" of
| a single host cell? When a host cell reproduces, how does the
| mitochondria get produced in the new cell to get things started?
|
| Cant wait to research this later.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > When a host cell reproduces, how does the mitochondria get
| produced in the new cell to get things started?
|
| Each half of the cell keeps the mitocondria that were living
| inside it.
| andrewla wrote:
| The two halves of the divided cells will usually both have
| mitochondria. Not always, though; sometimes cell division
| leaves one cell without any mitochrondria. That usually results
| in a non-viable cell, but sometimes the cell can survive with
| limited capacity. Some species that used to have mitochondria
| have apparently been through this process and have evolved to
| survive in their absence; Giardia duodenalis for example.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Oh wow! It never occurred to me that there are creatures
| without mitochondria.
| dekhn wrote:
| https://www.science.org/content/article/first-eukaryotes-
| fou...
| adastra22 wrote:
| I don't understand the headline (yes I skimmed the article). Why
| would mitochondria not be alive? What does that even mean?
| ssalka wrote:
| I imagine it's similar to how viruses are not considered to be
| alive, since they cannot reproduce without a host cell?
|
| But I have never been a fan of that argument either, both seem
| alive to me.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I think the idea here is that mitochondria developed
| independent of cells and later lived exclusively inside of
| them. In other words, they reproduced without cells. I am not
| sure, please correct me if I am wrong.
| semperdark wrote:
| You're not wrong. But over the enormous amount of time
| since, the "duplicate" organelles and systems needed for
| independent living were steadily carved out of
| mitochondria. While they do have their own DNA and
| replication process, the DNA is basically limited to
| specific things they need to perform their energy-
| generation functions and the replication happens when
| triggered by host cell replication.
|
| It's a bit like if you took the heart from an animal and
| transplanted it into a human: is it meaningful to call it
| independently alive? Maybe, it depends what question you're
| trying to ask.
| dekhn wrote:
| No, the predecessors of mitochondria were also cells and
| they reproduced through cellular division.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I don't know of any definition of "alive" that can survive
| application of a reductive understanding of biology that
| doesn't either count viruses as being "alive," or decide that
| nothing is alive.
|
| The uncertainty, I understood, was whether to classify them
| as distinct organisms the way we classify other species, as
| they are intrinsically parasitic for their replicative
| capability.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I am terrible at biology but I will try. The idea is that
| mitochondria is not a component of a living organism, but an
| organism that once lived independently of the cell.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| "If we think of mitochondria as non-living organelles..."
|
| mitochondria were thought to just be a component of the cell.
| But they have their own DNA separate from that in the cell's
| nucleus. They replicate on their own like bacteria.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > mitochondria were thought to just be a component of the
| cell.
|
| ... hundreds of years ago, for a short time after they were
| discovered.
|
| We know that they behave like bacteria for almost as long as
| we know that they exist.
| outworlder wrote:
| They "behave as" bacteria. _Are_ they bacteria? Are they
| 'alive' by themselves? That's the distinction.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Are they 'alive' by themselves?
|
| That's a discussion about word semantics that has no
| relation to biology. Biologists have been occupied with
| it for centuries, just like computer people have lost
| time on "what's intelligence?", but neither one is
| relevant for either field.
|
| > Are they bacteria?
|
| Once upon a time, their ancestors were. I do not know
| exactly where biologists trace the line, but this is also
| about word semantics. It's just a case of it that helps
| people communicate better, so there is a line, I just
| don't know what it is.
| adastra22 wrote:
| What do you mean by "alive?" Because of course they are
| alive, regardless of whether you consider them bacteria
| or not. There is a strange definition of "alive" that is
| being used by you and the author article that I'm not
| understanding.
|
| If a mitochondria is not "alive," then is it dead? Even
| if it is taking part in an active, living cell?
| adastra22 wrote:
| Organelles are alive too. All active biological systems are
| alive.
|
| Mitochondria have for many generations now been known to have
| their own DNA and replicate on their own. So I'm not sure
| what new distinction is being drawn?
| twothreeone wrote:
| I _think_ what they mean is it's not typically listed as a
| "life form" in its own right, i.e., there's no Domain under
| which one would classify Mitochondria - maybe just calling
| them bacteria would capture the article's intent?
|
| So, the modification would be that we are living in
| symbiosis with mitochondrial bacteria, similar to how we
| live in symbiosis with our gut bacteria, rather than them
| being classified as "organelles" of eukaryote cells.
| pleurotus wrote:
| That's more a flaw of classification systems though.
| Because even if they comprise a distinct life form does
| not mean they need to have a unique species. Consider
| lichen, which comprise two (or more!) separate "species"
| which becomes a meaningless distinction when they cannot
| survive on their own, or even if they could, not in a
| form recognizable in any wayas they were when they were a
| part of the symbiotic system
| hughesjj wrote:
| I mean at that point what do we consider multicellular
| organisms? Did you see what was going on with those frog
| skin cells and "xenobots"? Also, our gut bacteria kinda
| makes us a symbiote at a larger scale.
| pishpash wrote:
| Of course it is classified. In Wikipedia itself there is
| a phylogenetic tree listing its closest relative the
| alphaproteobacteria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitoch
| ondrion#Origin_and_evolu...
| adastra22 wrote:
| As others note, it is classified in the tree of life. We
| know approximately what kind of bacteria it evolved from,
| and mitochondria themselves constitute their own
| divergent branch of the tree of life (there are many
| longitudinal studies of mitochondria across species).
|
| But if you wanted classify them based on functionality
| rather than evolutionary history, I'd say they're more
| like viruses. They have only a handful of genes
| themselves, and exploits the nucleus' genetic material
| for all the other proteins it needs to function.
| dekhn wrote:
| Depends on your definition of organelle (whether you limit
| it to plastids/mitochondria, both of which were derived
| from external independent living cells, or use a more
| expansive definition that includes more cell compartments
| that weren't derived from independent living cells).
|
| General acceptance of the endosymbiont theory is a
| relatively recent (much less than 50 years) phenomenon.
| adastra22 wrote:
| "General acceptance" is a subjective criteria. But the
| endosymbiont theory is >60 years old at this point.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I was looking for specific notions explaining the emergence
| of this kind of endosymbiosis, anybody has links ?
| debacle wrote:
| > If one considers bacteria as living entities -- and all
| biologists seem to -- then it is impossible to explain why
| mitochondria are not.
|
| There seems to be a strange, half-hubris, half-pride vein that
| runs through Humanity that would see us as lesser for being hosts
| to benevolent bacteria, despite us very obviously being unable to
| survive without benevolent bacteria.
| jcims wrote:
| I think it just attacks the wholeness of 'self' and starts to
| reveal the true complexity of nature.
| echelon wrote:
| We didn't evolve to understand "self", and indeed most
| animals do not. There was no evolutionary pressure to do so.
| We're having to discover it piece by piece.
| r14c wrote:
| We aren't driven solely by evolutionary pressure. We can
| (and have) developed cultures that can easily accept that
| humans are "just" part of a larger system, even having a
| unique role, without having to be superior. Our culture
| isn't like that, of course. We are obviously doing a good
| job of being "in charge" of the planet and definitely not
| charging headfirst into a mass extinction event with our
| collective eyes closed.
| shawnz wrote:
| We had evolutionary pressure to evolve self-preservation,
| and that stars with self, doesn't it?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Everyone knows we're already that. The importance of gut
| microbiome for one - cited loads.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Unable to survive without them is pushing it. When one takes
| strong antibiotics most of them die.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "In the early 19th century, "
|
| With that level of proofreading, I'm not sure what else was wrong
| in the article...
| csours wrote:
| For a fictional macro version of the Margulis hypothesis, I'd
| recommend 'Alien Clay' by Adrian Tchaikovsky
| euparkeria wrote:
| It reminds me the game Parasite Eve.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| If we label mitochondria as alive, that would mean prison
| laborers must count as living, too.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Sir/Ma'am, I live in America. What is reasonable and
| compassionate and sensible is simply beyond the grasp of most
| everyone, looks to me.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > thinly veiled abortion argument
|
| Kek.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Interesting argument
|
| > control bioenergetics across the eukaryotic tree of life.
|
| What types of outcomes do we unlock when we can control
| bioenergetics?
| dekhn wrote:
| unlimited power
| pieter_mj wrote:
| I'll add the following to the conversation :
|
| https://x.com/niko_kukushkin/status/1854593093636350387 and
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170506064530/https://inference...
| j_bum wrote:
| Any time I read a mitochondria post like this, I strongly
| recommend that others who find the topic interesting check out
| _Power, Sex, and Suicide_ by Nick Lane.
|
| Excellent book!
| meowkit wrote:
| +1 to Nick Lane
|
| I've only read The Vital Question, but I felt it was a great
| introduction to biochem for someone not in the field.
| pkghost wrote:
| Absolutely loved TVQ. The insight about mitochondrial DNA
| inheritance being exclusively from the mother, thus
| motivating female fingerprinting of male nucleic DNA for
| gamete viability (via courtship rituals, pheromones, plumage,
| etc)...
| rsync wrote:
| Came here to recommend Power, Sex, and Suicide. It is a
| fascinating book.
| grantmuller wrote:
| The Vital Question covers this topic and is in general a really
| great basic education in biological energy production.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| > Mitochondrial DNA mutates 100-1,000 times faster than the human
| genome
|
| This statement is very interesting for two reasons:
|
| 1) We not consider mitochondrial DNA as part of the human genome
| when it's clearly is and can be used to establish the maternal
| genetic lineage.
|
| 2) Traditionally, we always think of telomere reduction and
| genetic mutations as the root cause of aging but not
| mitochondrial genetic damages.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > 2) Traditionally, we always think of telomere reduction and
| genetic mutations as the root cause of aging but not
| mitochondrial genetic damages.
|
| A lot of research is looking into the role of mitochondrial
| damage as causes for a number of conditions.
| swasheck wrote:
| a lot of focus on the definition of "alive" in the comments, but
| i think that the weight of this rests on it being a step toward
| confirming the endosymbiotic relationship theory which states
| that mitochondria were potentially part of another eukaryotic
| cells carrying what would become mitogchodria were engulfed by
| another cell. this affected cellular development by outsourcing
| energy production for the cell itself. a lot of times the results
| seem "self-evident" but you still have to find evidence to
| support or reject a theory and this seems like a step in that
| direction.
| ramon156 wrote:
| I still think about the fact that we're this close to proving
| the protocell theory, proving that we can create life from no
| life. Last time I read about it was 2021, and I'm really
| curious when the day arises we succeed
| renewiltord wrote:
| They are obviously alive, but also we are obviously a colony
| organism. The various bacteria we transmit from mother to child,
| the mitochondria inherent to our cells, all of this stuff is just
| part of a self-similarity of life from top to bottom. With
| sufficient zoom-out, we need not treat individuals (or pairs) as
| the only unit of life replication.
| andrewla wrote:
| I read the article waiting for an answer to the question "in what
| operational sense does this matter?" but it never arrived.
|
| The question posed is whether we consider mitochondria to be
| "alive". It's just a word, who cares. What do we do differently
| given this assumption?
| bmacho wrote:
| Ew. That's always an uncomfortable read.
| pizzathyme wrote:
| Exactly. Seems similar to "are LLMs alive"? What practical
| purpose would an answer to that question serve?
| The_Colonel wrote:
| That seems to be an overly reductive view on the value of
| knowledge.
|
| What practical purpose does studying ancient civilizations
| have? Why do we send expensive telescopes into space to study
| faraway galaxies and try to uncover mysteries of the big
| bang? When can we expect the results from number theory to
| lower the price of gas at the pump?
| andrewla wrote:
| But the definition of a word is not knowledge.
|
| Knowing that mitochondria have their own DNA is knowledge.
| Knowing that they reproduce independently of their home
| cell is knowledge. Learning whether they evolved from a
| separate viable organism would be knowledge. Learning
| whether we can make them viable, or breed them separately,
| and use them in therapies -- all knowledge.
|
| Whether they are "alive" or not is just the definition of a
| word.
| dekhn wrote:
| Much of science is about defining words in ways that
| match the underlying general structure of the system
| being studied.
|
| A subset of scientists want to come up with an
| operational definition of "What is life", which may or
| may not include things like viruses and mitochondria. As
| you say, it's mostly definitional, but by defining this,
| we can potentially make our understanding match up with
| the latent reality.
| nemonemo wrote:
| It doesn't seem the article addresses this, but I'd ask these
| questions: "would it be possible that mitochondria's
| evolutional interest and the organism's interest are not
| aligned?" "how many independent DNA can an organism possess?"
| "why mitochondria do not elicit immune reactions? Or can they?"
| hammock wrote:
| 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_curse
|
| 2) By "organism" I assume you mean "cell" since humans have
| several thousand different species with their own DNA living
| on or inside the body at any given moment. We can speak of
| animal cells, which have two (species and mitochondria) - and
| plant cells, which have three (species, mitochondria, and
| chloroplasts). If there can be one two or three, I don't see
| why there couldn't be even more.
|
| 3) Mitochondria are usually sequestered within the cell,
| which limits their exposure to immune cells. The immune
| system primarily targets pathogens that are outside the host
| cells. In fact, some pathogens can exploit mitochondrial
| pathways to evade immune detection - the most famous of which
| is HIV.
| davideg wrote:
| > _Defining mitochondria as "nonliving" isn't just a
| classification mistake, nor a question of word choice. Rather,
| it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and role of
| mitochondria. It inherently undermines our understanding of
| biological systems and deeply influences the tools we build to
| study them._
|
| Once you accept mitochondria as alive, you might be motivated
| to explore its "potential" niche, as described by the author.
| The example of implanting cross-species mitochondria in human
| cells (e.g. from a gorilla) might lead to novel therapies.
|
| It's about breaking outside the box of mitochondria having to
| live inside specific environments.
| andrewla wrote:
| So the theory is that if we don't accept them as alive, then
| we can't experiment with implanting cross-species
| mitochondria in human cells? Why not? What stops us from
| doing this?
| davideg wrote:
| This is a fair point. I can see the excitement around
| recognizing that mitochondria is alive to motivate
| exploring its other functions. But I think you're right
| someone might be interested in that exploration regardless
| of whether it's considered alive.
|
| Edit: to your point, there are plenty of scientists
| interested in studying viruses and much debate about
| whether or not they are alive. Ultimately it probably
| doesn't matter.
|
| I do think when you consider mitochondria to be alive, it
| broadens the scope of your thinking because you start
| considering each characteristic of life in relation to
| mitochondria. You might not be motivated to do that without
| thinking in those terms.
| davideg wrote:
| I recognize that you might be motivated to explore removing
| and implanting mitochondria regardless of whether you
| consider it to be alive (as you might think about implanting
| an organ from another source).
|
| I think the main point the author is making is to not fall
| prey to reductive thinking about mitochondria's potential and
| less about the question of "aliveness". We were all taught
| about mitochondria producing ATP, but it sounds like it
| serves many other functions and there's a lot more to explore
| about its potential in synthetic biology and therapeutics.
| dekhn wrote:
| It matters for a number of reasons, but the main reason in
| terms of pure biology is that it was not originally recognized
| that cells could absorb other cells and utilize them for the
| absorbed cell's natural function.
|
| This meant, importantly, that we learned cells did not always
| need to evolve a functionality from scratch, but could acquire
| it through phagocytosis.
|
| It's also a useful tool for studying evolution for many
| reasons.
| andrewla wrote:
| Whether or not mitochondria were once viable independent
| organisms that were absorbed by early eukaryotes does not
| depend on whether we call their modern descendants "living"
| or not. If we determine that they did, then we still don't
| have to call them alive -- certainly things like mitosomes
| exist and are suspected to have either evolved from
| mitochondria or evolved after amitochondrial division, but do
| not have DNA and do not reproduce independently but fulfil
| similar functions.
|
| We know they have DNA, we know they reproduce independently
| of the host cell, we know to a degree why they tend to move
| to both sides on cell division. We know lots of stuff about
| them and we can always learn lots more. Whether they are
| "alive" or not has absolutely no bearing on that, other than
| to naval-gaze.
| dekhn wrote:
| Oh, I see, you're getting hung up on the use of the term
| alive for modern mitochondria.
|
| This sort of definitional argument is not interesting to
| me.
| andrewla wrote:
| I think we're in agreement then -- this article is not
| about "did mitochondria evolve from absorbed viable
| organisms as opposed to evolving directly", which is an
| interesting question that impacts our understanding of
| evolution in microbiology. The article is about whether
| "Microchondria Are Alive" which is a useless naval-gaze.
| dekhn wrote:
| I dunno if I agree it's a total navel gaze.
|
| For example I could easily see a scientist asking the
| question, "if mitochrondira are not alive, at which point
| did the phagocytosis of the initial prokaryotic cell lead
| to the mitochondria not being alive?" "What components
| were lost in the cell that lead to the loss of life?" I
| agree these aren't particularly useful, and are
| ultimately definitional, but definitions matter a lot in
| science, especially when paradigms change.
| andrewla wrote:
| This is a much more interesting question, and this is
| what I mean by an operational definition of life. In your
| first question, "alive" can have useful operational
| definitions -- whether it is viable outside of a cell,
| whether it has or had its own immune system and
| structure, how it survived without the organelles that
| other full-fledged cells seem to have but mitochondria
| lack, etc.
|
| The question in the abstract is not really useful except
| to answer trick questions in bar trivia.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I was equally dismissive of the actual importance of
| philosophizing whether mitochondrias are alive or not, but this
| paragraph made me change my mind.
|
| > It seems Mitochondria are not bound to their host cell; they
| can travel between different cells. Although different species
| carry distinct mitochondria, experiments show that mitochondria
| from one species can be transferred to another.
|
| > In 1997, scientists isolated mitochondria from chimpanzees
| and gorillas and showed that they are naturally internalized
| and integrated into human cells. Notably, the addition of
| external mitochondria even showed therapeutic benefits in heart
| failure and spinal cord injury. Thus, the potential niche that
| mitochondria can live in is greater than their effective niche.
|
| So it seems like they are more symbiote than organelle, that's
| amazing.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| >Defining mitochondria as "nonliving" isn't just a classification
| mistake, nor a question of word choice. Rather, it is a
| fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and role of
| mitochondria. It inherently undermines our understanding of
| biological systems and deeply influences the tools we build to
| study them.
|
| This assertion is made but not supported. I don't think I
| understand the importance of this distinction, assuming that
| everyone already agrees about the evolutionary and mechanical
| facts about mitochondria, but as far as I can tell, no one
| disagrees that mitochondria were originally free living cells, or
| that they have their own DNA, or any of the other relevant facts
| about their origins or how they work in the cell. It's merely an
| argument about what it means to be alive. Which is
| philosophically interesting, but practically unimportant for the
| practice of biology.
|
| This seems like a purely semantic debate with no broader
| importance.
| wrycoder wrote:
| From an article cited in the OP [0],
|
| _More than 95% of all proteins located in the mitochondrial
| compartments are encoded by the nuclear DNA, synthesized in
| cytoplasmic ribosomes and imported into mitochondria. These
| include factors that regulate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene
| expression such as mtDNA and RNA polymerases, mitochondrial
| transcription factors, RNA processing and modifying enzymes,
| transcription termination factors, mitochondrial ribosomal
| proteins, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, and translation factors
| (1, 2)._
|
| It's clear that a mitrochondrial element can't live for long
| without the presence of the host cells, so, like a virus, it
| doesn't meet all the requirements to be considered fully
| living.
|
| [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC23071/
| m3kw9 wrote:
| So what now? We give them rights?
| itsafarqueue wrote:
| Or deport them.
| IAmNotACellist wrote:
| The fact that every child on the planet is religiously taught
| that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell is all the
| evidence I need that we're upholding a primordial contractual
| agreement and these are the conditions to which we are beholden.
|
| Name a single biological entity that has a better PR department.
| The only one that comes close is Athlete's Foot, which makes the
| victim sound cool.
| com2kid wrote:
| I actually never heard the phrase until I got online and saw
| the meme!
|
| My biology classes did have us gene editing bacteria to chance
| its color. That was fun!
|
| > The only one that comes close is Athlete's Foot, which makes
| the victim sound cool.
|
| The best cure for athletes foot is a 30 minute soak in diluted
| bleach. Get a wash basin, fill it with warm water, and add
| enough bleach so that it tingles a little bit.
|
| Do this every other day 3 times, e.g. Monday, Wednesday,
| Friday. Problem solved.
|
| Make sure to clean out the shoes as well, ideally not wearing
| any infected shoes for a few days at least, and soak the
| insides with Lysol a few times to prevent reinfection.
| protonbob wrote:
| According to my doctor, this can weaken the skin too much. 30
| minutes is quite a long time.
| beng-nl wrote:
| I have the same experience - never heard of it until I saw
| the meme. I have a feeling it's something local to American
| schoolchildren.
| piuantiderp wrote:
| Do the same but with Potassium chloride or bicarbonate. Done!
| And way safer
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Excellent point.
|
| Are there mitochondria in neurons?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are there mitochondria in neurons?_
|
| Yes [1].
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7373250/
| outworlder wrote:
| Yes. Neurons are very energy hungry.
| piombisallow wrote:
| Every cell in the body (except blood cells) has mithocondria.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Nitpick: except _red_ blood cells. White cells very much do
| have mitochondria.
|
| RBC's don't need them because they are incredibly low-
| metabolism. It's energetically cheaper for the organism
| just to make them, let them go for a few months, and then
| recycle the components.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Unfortunately Jock Itch (the same type of fungus) didn't get
| the same PR treatment.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Achilles tendon?
| hinkley wrote:
| The Sun.
|
| As far as I'm aware we've never worshipped mitochondria. And
| unless you want to count eating which is technically true but
| not philosophically so, we don't sacrifice plants or animals to
| mitochondria.
| tim333 wrote:
| Not very biological though.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I don't know why but for some reason, the name Mitochondria is
| very easy to remember even though it sounds complex.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| > _the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell_
|
| The explanation doesn't get much better at higher levels. You
| have the Krebs cycle which biology people religiously memorize
| but it doesn't really explain much either. The actual
| interesting part is usually handwaved away as "magical
| enzyme/protein" catalysis. Understanding how the mitochondrial
| proteins/enzyme catalysts function would usually require a
| graduate degree, and maybe a background in biochemistry and
| biophysics.
| im3w1l wrote:
| If you haven't, I suggest you look up an on how ATP Synthase
| uses the proton gradient to create ATP. It's quite amazing.
| It's literally a little nano-machine.
| tim333 wrote:
| The brain gets good PR. The brain dead are thought unfortunate.
| HaZeust wrote:
| >"Name a single biological entity that has a better PR
| department. The only one that comes close is Athlete's Foot,
| which makes the victim sound cool."
|
| Love this line! Phoenix Worm came to mind.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Mitochondria are why I'm a Rare Earther.
|
| In Earth's history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once.
| Without that you don't have the energy budget for complex life.
| Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it _can_ happen:
| modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it
| make inhospitable to the hobbling chimerae the first
| mitochondrial cells would have been.
|
| Until mitochondria, the emergence of life from nothing is
| plausible. With mitochondria, its progression to complex,
| multicellular and intelligent life makes sense. Both processes in
| small steps can be replicated, more or less, in the lab. But that
| one moment is not and has not been. As a result, I think the
| universe has lots of living slop but very few plants and animals.
|
| (Aside, look at ATP go:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUrEewYLIQg&t=939s)
| outworlder wrote:
| Mitochondria seems to have been an 'accident', yes.
|
| That does not mean that other lifeforms in different planets
| require mitochondria or equivalent organelles. As long as they
| can perform the necessary chemical reactions (which could be
| different in a different environments) and extract enough
| energy, they should be good.
|
| How did mitochondria evolve in the first place? Could they have
| remained as independent organisms and use their massive energy
| budget to evolve independently?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions_
|
| That mitochondria are conserved as an independent organelle
| across almost [1] all eukaryotes, across billions of years of
| history, suggests this is something the nuclear can't easily
| in house.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6343361/
| outworlder wrote:
| Maybe!
|
| That could also suggest that any other strategies were just
| out competed by this one and lost the opportunity to
| develop further.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _other strategies were just out competed by this one
| and lost the opportunity to develop further_
|
| Absolutely. It also means--however--that any niche where
| alternative _did_ exist, when exposed to mitochondrial
| life, they lost.
|
| Now that I think about it, it would be pretty funny if
| we're this universe's cheela [1], a freakishly
| overclocked biosphere that runs faster not because it had
| to but because it happened to.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg
| ajuc wrote:
| Evolution is path-dependent. Notice that mammals were
| comprehensively outcompeted by dinosaurs till asteroid
| removed them and gave mammals time and niches to develop
| in. If you recreated dinosaurs right now they would lose
| to mammals (for example to homo sapiens).
|
| It's perfectly possible that mitochondria are the
| dinosaurs of "cell powerplants" that just haven't
| encountered the asteroid to let other (ultimately better)
| solutions develop.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| There are organisms without mitochondria too though. So
| it's viable.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _are organisms without mitochondria too though. So it's
| viable._
|
| True, it's an anaerobic ersatz cnidarian [1] that may be
| an escaped cancer [2].
|
| [1] https://daily.jstor.org/who-needs-mitochondria-
| anyway/
|
| [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6343361/
| Rumudiez wrote:
| > [discovered in] gut bacteria from a researcher's pet
| chinchilla
|
| wow. we could be surrounded by so many extraordinary
| organisms and not even know it because there's so much
| variety just in our own backyards
| satvikpendem wrote:
| There was a study where participants were asked to swab
| their belly buttons and lots of new organisms were found.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/1-458-
| bac...
| im3w1l wrote:
| Absolutely fascinating. Especially the exotic
| multicellularity part. Maybe if it evolves even more
| multicellularity it will struggle with cancers of its own
| and have to reevolve tumor suppression, wouldn't that be
| something?!
| xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocercomonoides
|
| >It is the first eukaryotic genus to be found to completely
| lack mitochondria, and all hallmark proteins responsible
| for mitochondrial function. The genus also lacks any other
| mitochondria related organelles (MROs) such as
| hydrogenosomes or mitosomes. Data suggests that the absence
| of mitochondria is not an ancestral feature, but rather due
| to secondary loss.
| eboynyc32 wrote:
| It's so pathetic to keep hearing that dna is an accident ,
| life is an accident, mitochondria is an accident. What is an
| accident that natures says "oooops". When will we take our
| heads out of the sand and realize the universe is alive and
| creating everything. There are no goddamn accidents !!!!
| exe34 wrote:
| all happy little accidents!
| AlphaEsponjosus wrote:
| What? When saying that "X" is an accident, nobody means
| "nature says 'oooops'. Nature is neither conscious nor
| alive, if universe were alive and creates and shapes life,
| why is there so many errors happening in the universe?
|
| Everything exist by " accident", and that means that is the
| result of random events that happen unexpectedly in
| unimaginable places, leading to an environent were the
| outcome of this events causes more random events.
|
| Why universe insist in making life so uncommon if it has
| the secret to create and replicate?
| pieter_mj wrote:
| Mitochondria are bacteria that were endosymbioticized into
| what became the eukaryotic cell. Mitochondria can still
| survive (live) independently and functionally in the blood
| when they're separated from platelets and microvesicles.
| Mitochondria are the software that epigenetically switch
| nuclear DNA genes on and off. That sofware can be tweaked by
| light, for instance UV light or IR light. mtDNA mutates
| x1000000 more rapidly than nuclear DNA.
| dekhn wrote:
| uhh where did you get " Mitochondria are the software that
| epigenetically switch nuclear DNA genes on and off."
| liyamchitayat wrote:
| One interesting thing is that many reactions actually have to
| occur in their own compartment- and since we have not lost
| the mtDNA, it may suggest that having an additional control
| center is beneficial.there are some interesting theories
| about the relations of that to lifespan
| https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/mitochondria-are-
| flingin....
| im3w1l wrote:
| Couldn't it be that we haven't fully lost mtDNA because
| it's simply a very slow process that has not yet run its
| course?
| aydyn wrote:
| Given how old mitochondria are it seems more likely that
| its more efficient to have its own DNA.
|
| DNA isn't just abstract information, it's also where the
| first step of protein / enzyme construction occurs. DNA
| location matters.
| patcon wrote:
| Mitochondria allowed who different energetic regimes and
| structures. Like the scaffold that allows multicellular
| organisms to even hold together simpler are not possible
| (energetically) without mitochondria. It took the whole
| marriage of the two systems to allow the energy state (the
| "chemical reactions" as you say) to be possible
|
| SFI Complexity podcast has a few great episodes on this
| WalterSear wrote:
| > Could they have remained as independent organisms and use
| their massive energy budget to evolve independently?
|
| This presumes that their energy budget was massive to begin
| with, rather than being selected for over time.
| maxerickson wrote:
| So only a few billion planets with complex life?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only a few billion planets with complex life?_
|
| Or trillions or tens or ones. Depends on what number you put
| in the exponent. Currently, we don't have useful constraints
| on that figure.
|
| (A lot of popular astrobiology pulls the "if we could only
| get 1% of the market we'd be billionaires" schtick.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| The astrobiology schtick is just a what if thought
| experiment though, and nothing proven nor claimed to be
| fact. It's just a way to show that the scale of the
| universe is "hugely, mind-bogglingly big" while trying to
| pull a number that our squishy lobes could comprehend. If
| 1% of mind-bogglingly huge number, then 1% of that, then 1%
| of that yields a still mind-bogglingly big number. The laws
| of large numbers would suggest something as well.
| Otherwise, "its an awful waste of space"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure. The point is 1% is a _huge_ fraction for a lot of
| things. Market share. And many reaction cross sections.
| WWWWH wrote:
| I have a chloroplast for you on line two; can you hold?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| They're sensitive about the Oxygen Holocaust [1][2]?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Earth_hypothesis
| casenmgreen wrote:
| I may be wrong, but I recall reading recently it had been found
| the same event had occurred again, fairly recently (hundreds of
| thousands of years, could be millions) in some species of
| bacteria or something like that.
|
| Here's a thought, also; maybe once this has happened, it tends
| to crowd out needing to happen again.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it had been found the same event had occurred again,
| fairly recently_
|
| Would love to know the source if you have it.
| joshuahedlund wrote:
| Might be referring to this:
| https://newatlas.com/biology/life-merger-evolution-
| symbiosis...
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Yes. That's the one. Thank you.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| Huh. This is the correct news, but a different article to
| the one I recall. However, very interesting;
|
| > The first occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, when an
| archaea swallowed a bacterium that became the
| mitochondria.
|
| > The second time happened about 1.6 billion years ago,
| when some of these more advanced cells absorbed
| cyanobacteria that could harvest energy from sunlight.
|
| > And now, scientists have discovered that it's happening
| again. A species of algae called Braarudosphaera
| bigelowii was found to have engulfed a cyanobacterium
| that lets them do something that algae, and plants in
| general, can't normally do - "fixing" nitrogen straight
| from the air, and combining it with other elements to
| create more useful compounds.
|
| So, tremendously rare, at least to our knowledge at this
| time, but not a one-off.
| hurpdurpdurp wrote:
| I know nothing about biology, pardon my ignorance. From the
| article it sounds like mitochondria were a separate organism
| that has perhaps simplified through specialization and is
| currently on the boundary of being an independent life form. It
| also sounds like there are other structures (golgi apparatus
| are mentioned?) which are not on the bubble. Are we sure that
| there is not an arrow of time here, where once those other
| structures were also semi-independent and have become less so?
|
| More broadly, it leads me to wonder whether cellular life might
| eventually/might have at some point specialize towards hosting
| novel endosymbioses.
|
| Either scenario, assuming what I'm saying isn't just total
| nonsense, would seem to make the state of mitochondria less of
| a one-off event and more of the instance of that event we are
| around at the right time to observe.
| liyamchitayat wrote:
| Hi! thanks for taking time to read :)
|
| Those other membrane bubbles inside out cells don't have any
| of the machines we expect to be associated with cellular
| life- but you never actually know!
|
| Also, this is def not a 1-off, and happened many times,
| including chloroplasts in this new nitroplast we found
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroplast
| aardvark179 wrote:
| Chloroplasts also evolved from separate organisms and are now
| effectively organelles. So this is t a one off event.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| And even if those hadn't become organelles, who knows if they
| (or mitocondrias) could have evolved towards multicellular
| life on their own? They were already organisms to begin with.
| liyamchitayat wrote:
| Yes! and there are additional cases, like the nitroplasts
| that we recently discovered.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroplast
| qudat wrote:
| Like other gradients (heat, pressure, chemical) it might seem
| rare, the gradient guides its occurrence. A power efficiency
| gradient was going to happen eventually, accident or otherwise.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Yup. That it happened isn't by chance, but the particular
| instance being the one to happen & dominate is by chance.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| If reality can emerge out of nowhere I don't see it unlikely
| for life to emerge in some other planet.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If reality can emerge out of nowhere I don 't see it
| unlikely for life to emerge in some other planet_
|
| If everything however unlikely is likely because creation is
| unfathomable, sure.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Not everything. Life in particular. Because without life (a
| conscious observer) reality cannot exist. So it should be a
| property of reality for life to emerge.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| That sounds like a catch-22
| 9dev wrote:
| Isn't that kind of mixing up the chain of causation?
| Without a winner, a lottery cannot exist (or at least, at
| p=0, it's nonsensical). That doesn't automatically imply
| there are a lot of winners, however.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| I think what I am trying to say is consciousness (life)
| is reality. And so all kind of planetary experiences can
| exist inside consciousness as it's contents since
| consciousness is capable of generating all kind of
| content.
|
| There is nothing specific about our consciousness that
| makes it unique to earth.
| timschmidt wrote:
| You are mistaking the map for the territory: https://en.w
| ikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Can you explain in simple terms? I see physical reality
| as almost redundant and consciousness seems to be able to
| do everything.
| timschmidt wrote:
| From the first paragraph of the linked article:
|
| "Mistaking the map for the territory is a logical fallacy
| that occurs when someone confuses the semantics of a term
| with what it represents. Polish-American scientist and
| philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that "the map is
| not the territory" and that "the word is not the thing",
| encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from
| something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself.
| Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with
| territories, that is, confuse conceptual models of
| reality with reality itself."
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| Okay. I can see that in day to day life. People confusing
| sentences with actual knowing. Like labeling something a
| tree and thinking you know what a tree is because you
| know it's a "tree".
|
| But how did anyone verify there is an underlying reality
| outside consciousness? It's just an assumption right?
| timschmidt wrote:
| > But how did anyone verify there is an underlying
| reality outside consciousness?
|
| It's the stuff which continues existing when we stop
| believing in it.
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, it's taken on faith by scientists that we live in an
| objective universe with cold hard reality outside our
| consciousness. It seems like a reasonable assumption,
| consistent with all our observations. It seems not
| unreasonable to assume that in the early universe there
| was nothing living, then at some point, through random
| chance, the first living things became alive (possibly
| from some non-alive replicators), and then later, the
| first living things with consciousness came to be. Again,
| all of this is consistent with our observations, but
| effectively taken on faith/treated as an assumption.
| dekhn wrote:
| Your philosophy is consistent with panpsychism
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism). Not really
| clear how this affects the major discussion here, which
| is about objective reality as determined by science, and
| so far as we can tell, neither life nor consciousness is
| not a prerequisite for reality. It's a fun idea to play
| with but firmly outside the realm of something we could
| experiment with scientifically.
| dekhn wrote:
| There is no known scientific principle or theory with
| experimental support that without a conscious observer
| reality cannot exist. It's not something that can be
| tested, and lies in the realm of philosophy, not science.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| I don't think reality has this property that what cannot
| be tested through scientific method is not true.
| dekhn wrote:
| It might not, you wouldn't be able to convince anybody
| that something is true, but cannot be tested- that's
| philosophy and religion.
| WalterSear wrote:
| A 'quantum observer' is merely a physical system that
| interacts with the quantum system being measured. It
| doesn't have to be conscious or animate.
| ricksunny wrote:
| Robin Hanson #HardSteps
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0lKliaFllPA&t=910s (timeatamped)
| VMG wrote:
| How do we know it only happened once? Maybe it happened
| multiple times but only one version survived while the others
| were outcompeted?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How do we know it only happened once?_
|
| We don't. But we know we can't replicate it, have never
| observed it, don't seem to find half-assed attempts at it in
| the wild and that there weren't multiple competing
| chemistries that found themselves co-existing, there was one.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| In addition to what others have pointed out (chloroplasts), I
| think this makes another mistake. Although only the
| mitochondria and chloroplast lineages remain, it is possible it
| happened other times but those lineages were out-competed, for
| whatever reasons, and are now extinct.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it is possible it happened other times but those lineages
| were out-competed, for whatever reasons, and are now extinct_
|
| Chlorophyll probably outcompeted retinal [1]. (The stuff in
| our eyes.)
|
| The reduced form of my claim is that mitochondrial life so
| freakishly outcompetes its competitors as to be in a class of
| its own. Which still yields a rare Earth, albeit a first
| among many.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Earth_hypothesis
| aydyn wrote:
| Does it yield a rare Earth? If we didn't have mitochondria
| and had something say 20% less efficient, why couldn't
| multicellular life still exist?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why couldn 't multicellular life still exist?_
|
| We don't know the fundamental energy requirements of
| complex life. The threshold may be 2%. It may be 19.995%.
| If non-mitochondrial metabolism is common, the Earth
| would still be rare in that we'd be the "fast" biosphere.
| The high-octane species. Given how power-intensive
| intelligence is, that might be material. (Or it might
| not.)
|
| More fundamentally: we have no plausible alternate
| chemistries that don't bootstrap on mitochondrial life.
| (We do for photosynthesis.)
| aydyn wrote:
| I think that's a little farfetched since a lot of
| prokaryotes show the beginning stages of complex multi-
| cellularity.
| jjk166 wrote:
| In an evolutionary process, one lineage running away is the
| most likely outcome. It's very unlikely that two competing
| lineages would evolve to be exactly equal at the same time
| and remain equal for an extended period of time.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _In an evolutionary process, one lineage running away
| is the most likely outcome_
|
| What are you basing this on?
| quantadev wrote:
| It's based on the fact that one explanation of why
| there's not even millions more species of all life, is
| because the more successful ones simply cannibalized the
| less successful ones. This would've started even before
| complex life, almost at the chemical level.
|
| I say cannibalized, because avoiding eating your own
| species is a higher brain function that would've came far
| later, so it came down to eat or be eaten. Still is
| frankly.
| jjk166 wrote:
| This process, known as primary endosymbiosis, happened at least
| twice, for mitochondria and chloroplasts. Further, while all
| chloroplasts (and more widely plastids) appear to share a
| common ancestor, there is evidence that mitochondria may
| descend from multiple lineages that underwent lateral gene
| transfer and/or convergent evolution. Nitroplasts are a likely
| another, separate instance of primary endosymbiosis.
|
| There is also secondary endosymbiosis, where the endosymbiont
| organelles of one eukaryote are engulfed and incorporated into
| another eukaryotic cell to create a new type of endosymbiont.
| This has happened at least 8 times.
|
| There are also theories that some other organelles are the
| product of other endosymbiosis events, many of which also have
| some of the hallmarks like their own genetic material. These
| theories are more speculative though.
|
| It's also worth noting that while eukaryotes obviously gained
| some important capabilities from incorporating these
| endosymbionts, the endosymbionts they incorporated obviously
| managed to just evolve to perform those functions directly.
| Further, while one of eukaryotes' distinguishing features are
| mitochondria, there are several other major differences, and
| mitochondria are not believed to be what made eukaryotes better
| able to evolve complex multicellularity. Prokaryotes have
| indeed evolved multicellularity dozens of times, and we
| arbitrarily set our definition of complex multicellularity to
| distinguish from what prokaryotes have achieved.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| There are a huge number of different organelles that evolved
| independently through events like this- other people mention
| chloroplasts but there are many others, and probably many yet
| undiscovered.
|
| I would argue that the type of event that produced mitochondria
| is likely not rare at all, but certain pairings will so
| outcompete others that we should expect only one to survive and
| dominate.
| quantadev wrote:
| All planets with a diverse chemical makeup will stumble across
| accidental formation of a replicator molecule. It's 100%
| certain. That's all that's required for "life".
|
| People have theorized even a 50 base pair segment of RNA might
| be capable of building exact copies of itself, either by
| snapping in half and auto-forming the same other half, or by
| other means. Since there's two sexes, it was perhaps a
| "halving" at that level, that early on, which led ultimately to
| TWO sexes, but that's a side point.
|
| We can even predict the probability of any 50 base pair
| ordering. It's 1/(4^50). That's 30 zeroes in the denominator.
| Now consider that a single glass of water has 10^23 molecules.
| That's 7 orders of magnitude difference. So the amount of water
| you need to cross that magnitude threshold is 7. Turns out
| that's exactly the size of an Olympic swimming pool. 10 million
| cups of water.
|
| So statistically, a planet with an ocean volume only as large
| as a swimming pool has the "Statistical Power" (power of large
| numbers) to find ANY 50 base pair combination (give or take an
| order of magnitude or two) Once it finds a replicator, life has
| started, and so has evolution. And that's guaranteed within the
| first minute or so, at reasonable temperatures. Now multiply
| that time by the average age of a planet, and you begin to
| realize, statistically life is guaranteed, in any chemically
| diverse scenario with reasonable temperatures.
| dekhn wrote:
| Interesting argument, but nobody believes that a diverse
| chemical makeup is sufficient to guarantee life.
|
| You can wave big numbers around but none of that makes a
| convincing argument; it's not hard to construct any number of
| scenarios where self replicators are started but don't lead
| to true life.
|
| Also you're comparing a gram of water to a bunch of bases;
| H2O is not DNA.
| armoredkitten wrote:
| Talking about what is considered "alive" is an interesting
| exercise, and shows just how fuzzy those boundaries can be
| sometimes. But I really don't see how this has any practical
| impact on how we study mitochondria.
|
| > If we think of mitochondria as non-living organelles, how will
| we ever harness their full potential?
|
| Whenever anyone uses the "harnessing [its] full potential"
| cliche, my bullshit alarm starts buzzing. I don't think this
| article is bullshit, but...we can "harness" as much "potential"
| as mitochondria have whether we consider them alive or not.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Feels analogous to the CPU and the Management Engine heh.
| habitue wrote:
| > If we think of mitochondria as non-living organelles, how will
| we ever harness their full potential?
|
| "Alive" is a fuzzy boundary in concept space that helps humans
| navigate a fractally complex world. It's not a fact about
| mitochondria that either hides or reveals structure. We can
| harness the potential of viruses, and reasonable people can
| disagree on whether they are alive.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| It's such highly unlikely chance events that make me think we
| really are alone in the universe (we = a sentient civilizational
| lifeform). There's just no way the long series of extremely
| improbable events that led to our rise was replicated anywhere
| else, and it took the sheer vastness of this universe for it to
| have emerged even once.
| a-curious-crow wrote:
| universe big
| rsync wrote:
| There is ~1M bacteria in a single drop of seawater.
|
| Now multiply that by (the ocean) and multiply the interactions
| by X billion years.
|
| It seems impossible for a symbiosis like this _not to have
| happened_.
|
| No matter how low the odds are, the counts of those potential
| interactions bring this outcome to a certainty.
| latchkey wrote:
| Each grain of sand on earth represents 1 billion planets in
| the universe.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1af4prs/if_you_w.
| ..
| Aloisius wrote:
| There are 100 million times more bacteria in the ocean than
| there are stars in the universe.
|
| Which really should tell people how rare the development of
| mitochondria was if it has only happened once here.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| It didn't necessarily happen only once; maybe we were
| left with the most successful instance.
| hughesjj wrote:
| Not even that. There could be better civilizations than
| us out there that either
|
| 1. Died off or regressed
|
| 2. Plateaued
|
| 3. Is sufficiently far away or stealthy enough for us not
| to notice them (whether intentionally or not)
|
| I've often thought about the whole communications bubble
| argument... I don't buy it. I'd imagine, like wifi, other
| civilizations will maximize their communication
| bandwidth, which essentially also maximizes entropy which
| looks like noise to us. Compression, encryption,
| redundancy, multiplexing over frequency and amplitude and
| time, directional antennas and signalling... That's what
| we've done in under 100 years.
|
| I know there's stuff like organic markers etc, but if
| machines are doing most of the heavy lifting I don't
| think that would matter. Same with stuff like hydrogen
| emissions lines. Whatever is abundant will be used for
| "settled" and "dead" solar systems alike.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The issue here is that the interactions over X billion years
| are not the same. Each event that happened on this rock would
| also need to happen else where to have the same evolutionary
| pressures applied.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _No matter how low the odds are, the counts of those
| potential interactions bring this outcome to a certainty._
|
| That is simply not true. Events are classified by
| probabilities, and there are a whole lot of things with a
| probability _a lot less_ than will happen across the whole
| ocean across however many billion years.
|
| All the higher-probability events will occur, yes. But a
| specific _sequence_ of multiple extremely low-probability
| events? That then continues to replicate before it gets wiped
| out by chance?
|
| Not a certainty, absolutely not. Contrary to what you say, it
| matters _very much_ exactly how low the odds are.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| The universe seems so ridiculously big to me that I can't
| imagine anything major happening only once.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Here is an animation of the Mitochondria in action. The
| mitochondria has two cell membranes. The gap in between is called
| the intermembrane space. It is also positively charged with
| protons. There are complexes 1-4 which continuously pump protons
| into this space. The ATP synthase molecule harnesses these
| protons, similar to a water wheel harnessing the flow of water,
| to make ATP which is the energy molecule the cell uses.
|
| https://youtu.be/LQmTKxI4Wn4?si=i7TpeoV3o_mCWpZF
| jessriedel wrote:
| This article managed to hit two classic science journalism
| cliches in just the first few paragraphs.
|
| (1) "Someone hypothesizing a very dramatic theory with weak
| evidence was considered wrong by most colleagues but later
| vindicated when strong evidence emerged". (No mention of
| thousands of other dramatic hypotheses that turned out wrong.)
|
| (2) "You may have heard in unsophisticated popularization that
| [philosophical claim ultimately hinging on semantic distinction]
| was false, but really it's true [assuming my preferred
| semantics]".
|
| Aren't we all tired of this yet? Aren't science journalists
| embarrassed by this stuff?
| asveikau wrote:
| For #1, I disagree with how you assess this.
|
| Firstly, the one who makes the logical fallacy inference that
| this implies all or most dramatic hypotheses are true is ...
| You. Not the author of the article. The author of the article
| is only talking about one specific theory. If I tell you a
| story about a chicken crossing the road, I'm not obligated to
| tell you about all the chickens who don't cross any roads.
|
| Second, there are plenty of examples of established theories
| that started this way, and so it _is_ important that scientists
| consider controversial hypotheses with an open mind. Speaking
| in any context, it 's very easy to dismiss evidence that
| contradicts your views prematurely. It's sort of a defense
| mechanism we all do. It's important to recognize such a bias
| and be willing to acknowledge where your own theory could fall
| short when you see it.
| jessriedel wrote:
| My point isn't that these can't be interpreted correctly,
| it's that these framings teach us nothing new because they
| have been repeated a thousand million times and this article
| does not attempt to go beyond the superficial cliche.
| liyamchitayat wrote:
| Hi! for point 2# I had many debates about this with Prof. that
| are cell biologists, and if you google "Are mitochondria
| alive," the answer Gemini will give you is no. This is very
| controversial in my academic circles, but I appreciate your
| thoughts!
| jessriedel wrote:
| My point is that it's largely a semantics dispute, not a
| scientific one.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Wonerful! This article is a mind-meld of Humberto Maturana's work
| on autopoiesis with almost any of Nick Lane's deep discussions of
| bioenergetics e.g., the wonderful book " Power, Sex and Suicide:
| Mitochonria and the Meaning of Life" or his equally strong book
| "Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death" that is
| focused on the Kreb's cycle. He brings biochemistry and
| bioenergetics alive in a way that will impact your thinking.
|
| Maturana and Valera gave a brilliant definition of "living" in
| Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living" (1980).
| But their writing style will make this a tough read. Terry
| Winograd write a useful summary if Maturana's philosophy in his
| computer science classic "Computers and Cognition".
| meneton wrote:
| This article is framed as if there is something novel and
| profound here, but the "aliveness" of mitochondria is simply a
| matter of how we choose to apply the label "life" - a human
| linguistic construct that exists independently of the biological
| phenomena. This is not a new discussion - science has been
| considering this question for many decades, just as it has with
| viruses. These all come down to arguments about semantics and
| don't add anything to the science.
|
| Mitochondria are fascinating and there is still a huge amount to
| learn about them but they are totally dependent on the cell's
| machinery. Most of their genes, the code for their structure, are
| in the nuclear DNA. A glaring omission if you are trying to make
| the case that mitochondria are independently living. My heart can
| exist independently of me, and be transplanted into other people,
| but does it mean that it is alive?
|
| The implication of the whole article is that there something we
| have missed. This really isn't the case. Lynn Margulis's
| endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria was challenged by many, and
| it did spark a scientific debate - that's how science works. She
| won the argument comprehensively decades ago and is well
| established science. There have been many such endosymbiotic
| events in the history of life - there are subfields of
| evolutionary biology that study these processes.
| liyamchitayat wrote:
| Hi!
|
| I agree with you, which is why I wrote this- but if you google
| "are mitochondria alive" gemini says it isn't. And yes, the
| cells in your heart have an effective and potenitial niche!
|
| We seem to have many tools to engineer viruses, but few to
| engineer mitochondria- perhaps considering them as alive could
| change that!
| tim333 wrote:
| I just tried that and it said:
|
| >Yes, mitochondria are alive, though they are not considered
| "living" in the same way as a cell because they can't
| function independently...
|
| Maybe it's learning!
| jpk wrote:
| Or maybe the temperature is set too high! Probably don't
| start with a single LLM response as the basis for your
| understanding of scientific consensus.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Eukaryotes generally can't survive without mitochondria
| either. It seems silly to discuss if different subsystems
| in a living organism are independently "alive." It's a bit
| like arguing if just the wings or just the engine of an
| airplane are flying machines.
| dragandj wrote:
| "Gemini" says? So what?
| tim333 wrote:
| It shows there are misconceptions out there, if only in
| LLMs.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I am not sure you should be relying on an LLM as any
| indication of anything...
|
| More seriously, considering something as being alive in order
| to engineer them better does not necessarily change the fact
| of them actually being alive or not, in my opinion.
| dekhn wrote:
| If LLMs work the way I understand them to, they are trained
| on large corpora which contain a statistical preponderance
| of statements which are consistent with the current
| scientific mainstream, so it may not be completely crazy to
| try doing this; you'd get the scientific mainstream
| explanation, and possibly a few alternative hypotheses if
| they had enough literature support.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _if you google "are mitochondria alive" gemini says it
| isn't_
|
| And my grandmother is a bicycle.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Still one of my favorite idioms
| meneton wrote:
| You are completely right that we should be thinking far more
| creatively about manipulating mitochondria. There are a lot
| of diseases (including Covid) that have mitochondrial
| aspects. I just don't think calling them alive helps, other
| than to get you some decent exposure on HN :)
| sroussey wrote:
| Mitochondria are weird. Look at 3-parent baby (human).
| aeturnum wrote:
| > _The implication of the whole article is that there something
| we have missed._
|
| I think this article is talking to people who haven't
| internalized the details of the scientific consensus. Those
| people are still going around, talking about "life" and making
| decisions based on the flawed understanding this article is
| critiquing. I think it's likely that the thing that "has been
| missed" is not narrowly scientific in the way you seem to be
| thinking - but more about broad implications and worldview.
| thinkling wrote:
| > Most of their genes, the code for their structure, are in the
| nuclear DNA.
|
| Are they? I was under the impression that mitochondria are
| closer to pseudo-cells living inside human cells.
|
| Wikipedia seems to confirm this [1]:
|
| > Although most of a eukaryotic cell's DNA is contained in the
| cell nucleus, the mitochondrion has its own genome
| ("mitogenome") that is substantially similar to bacterial
| genomes.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion
| kylebenzle wrote:
| OP above you is correct. Maybe you are thinking about it
| wrong?
| bonzini wrote:
| See below on Wikipedia: "Most proteins necessary for
| mitochondrial function are encoded by genes in the cell
| nucleus and the corresponding proteins are imported into the
| mitochondrion. The exact number of genes encoded by the
| nucleus and the mitochondrial genome differs between
| species."
| ale42 wrote:
| There's a specific page on Wikipedia about Mitochondrial DNA
| [1], where it is clearly said that: In the
| cells of extant organisms, the vast majority of the proteins
| in the mitochondria (numbering approximately 1500
| different types in mammals) are coded by nuclear DNA,
| but the genes for some, if not most, of them are
| thought to be of bacterial origin, having been transferred to
| the eukaryotic nucleus during evolution. (citing [2])
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA
|
| [2] https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cels.2016.01.013
| 725686 wrote:
| They were, originally. Over the eons, they have lost many of
| their original genes. Source: Nick Lanes fantastic books,
| specially Power, Sex, Suicide
| dekhn wrote:
| what about obligate intracellular parasites like mycoplasma?
| They are awfully close to mitochondria but we think of them as
| alive. They've lost many of their genes and can't survive
| without the host. Looking at those, you could almost see a path
| from an obligate intraceullular parasite to an organelle
| derived from a phagocytosed prokaryote.
| beambot wrote:
| > These all come down to arguments about semantics and don't
| add anything to the science.
|
| This accurately describes much of science...
|
| > My heart can exist independently of me, and be transplanted
| into other people, but does it mean that it is alive?
|
| The cells that comprise your heart are very much alive, but
| they will die without support infrastructure. They live, they
| replicate, they die -- like every cell in your body. If I
| relocate you to the moon without support infrastructure, you
| would die too -- and yet (I think?) you are probably alive.
| staplers wrote:
| Best argument I've heard for Gaia theory, intentionally or
| not.
| lynguist wrote:
| I agree completely with all the points made in the article and
| would double down on the critique of the philosophy of biology as
| a discipline and science itself: namely that is has historically
| evolved as a mere system of typologies and that this is so
| settled in and so sacrosanct that biology is such a superstition
| with human-made categories a couple hundred years ago and not a
| real science.
|
| We see the exact same things also when discussing what is a
| species and also completely disregarding the reality of
| horizontal gene transfers etc in the strict, traditional trees.
|
| The models are quite wrong and even reduced wrong.
|
| There is this one famous article that shows how traditional
| biology would go and analyze a transistor radio, namely just
| label its assumed components!
|
| Here is the discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31697757
| tim333 wrote:
| I'd been taught mitochondria maybe came from bacteria back in
| high school 40 years ago but I didn't realise till now that Lynn
| Margulis also proposed the cell nucleus arose in a similar way.
|
| (paper https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC34369/)
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