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Mitochondria Are Alive

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Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#331

Post by dr_dshiv »

meneton wrote: post #179

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 sem…

I’m not sure what you are arguing against. For me, the article offered a lovely reminder that life is special. Life involves mechanisms but it is more than a machine. And with an attitude that our lives our symbiotically bound to another living organism (or 10^17 of them) we gain a valuable humility — one that might afford us new perspectives on how to make them all happy and flourish. That’s the promise— not just a spiritual connection to the aliveness of mitochondria, but a pragmatic orientation towards their health and wellbeing. And there is a lot of scientific opportunity to explore there.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#332

Post by adastra22 »

Teever wrote: post #171
olddustytrail wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then go ahead. Make those videos. Sell that vision. There's no one stopping you except you.

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.

Because bringing up “what about Y?” When the discussion topic is X and there is no connection to Y goes against HN norms.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#333

Post by melagonster »

bonzini wrote: post #236
thinkling wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.w…

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."

yes, Human mitochondria only generate less than 20 types of protein; all other things they need are from cytoplasm.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#334

Post by tsimionescu »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #261
incompatible wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Very much alive," in the sense of being a living organism in their own right. By that standard, each cell in the human body can also be considered a separate living organism, simply cooperating with other humans cells in a complex way. It makes sense, since we have no problem identifying the trillions of bacteria cells living on or in the human body as separate living organisms.

"Sperm and egg cells, known as gametes, fuse during fertilization to create a zygote. " Since all humans were just 2 cells at one point. It seems to follow that the entirely of the code for what a human is, is contained in just those 2 cells. Not just code for a finger. But even code for our deeply ingrained fear of snakes. Was just at one point contained in those 2 cells. Kind of blows your mind. If they are separat…

I know this is not exactly your point, but it's important to remember that it's not exactly everything. The intra-uterine environment has a serious contribution to your development, and almost certainly transplanting the fecundated cell into a different mother would lead to a different person being born. Especially when it comes to things like intestinal flora, which mostly seems to get "seeded" from the mother during birth. Even the milk you ingest after birth significantly influences certain aspects of your basic biology (mostly the immune system).

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#335

Post by Anotheroneagain »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

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 chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

Only if you assume it went the seemingly straightforward way, but it could have been more complex. Maybe at first there was no particular limit to unicellular life, and there were unicellular lifeforms both small or large. But the big ones had a terrible problem avoiding getting parasitized by microscopic ones. As, there is one wall to breach, and once it gets in, it's in for good. So maybe eventually one of the bigger ones developed multicellularity as a kind of internal defence wall system, rather than multicellular life evolving from tiny cells clumping together. This gave it an enormous advantage at larger sizes, as all pathogens had to invade the cells one by one, and most of the macroscopic unicellular organisms perished, and some unicellular eukaryotes evolved since then.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#336

Post by d0mine »

colechristensen wrote: post #256
dekhn wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that’s exactly what they are, former endoparasites which gradually lost their independence and became more specialist in their function. Defining an arbitrary line and then attaching labels does not really add to understanding.

But it does. How many grains of send form a heap? How many atoms form a fluid? Is it something a particle or a wave? The line can be drawn depending on specific problem, on how useful a heap/fluid/particle/wave model for this specific application.

A label (abstraction) allows us to bring corresponding tools that were developed for it. If you can count trees then the same math can be useful to count people.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#337

Post by [deleted] »

beambot wrote: post #233
meneton wrote: post #179

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 sem…

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#338

Post by rgbswan »

meneton wrote: post #179

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 sem…

You might find this interesting:

"Clinical potential of sensory neurites in the heart and their role in decision-making"

[] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10896837/

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#339

Post by astrobe_ »

dekhn wrote: post #225
meneton wrote: post #179

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 sem…

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.

This called symbiosis. When a parasite such as a virus, a bacteria, a fungus, a plant, an insect and its host find a win-win "agreement".

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#340

Post by stoperaticless »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #172
VMG wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know it only happened once? Maybe it happened multiple times but only one version survived while the others were outcompeted?

> 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.

I would like to present you with Chlamydia.

I find it remarkable that chlamydia cells, fully enter host cells and live there stealing of resources.

I would call it evolutions “half-assed attempt” at endosymbiosis. (Disclaimer: evolution has no goal)

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