In order to have the simplest universal currency of energy for carbon based life, ATP has to be made.
In order to make that basic thing, we need a molecular version of a jet engine.
If you have just 5 minutes, take a look at this engine, running in every living organism, making a simple molecule that conducts power for almost every chemical reaction in our cells.
I guarantee that you'll be blown away if you haven't seen this before. It's keeping you alive right now.
So, how does life start?
We can't begin evolution until we have a frikkin turbine engine that generates chemical energy?
How do you make that complex thing without the ATP in the first place?
___
One of my co-workers got sick, developed rhabdomyolysis after a gym session.
The illness produced quite a fever.
The fever is caused by mitochondrial breakdown: the protons leak through the membrane, causing the energy to be lost as heat.
Once that happens, the Hydrogen and Oxygen reaction to water gets decoupled, and they make peroxides and peroxynitrites, which blow holes through the membranes, and the mitochondrion just falls apart.
Mitochondria themselves are amazing. They are functionally sort of capacitors, holding an electric charge that runs the ATP making machine.
They also hold a self destruct mechanism for DNA.
WHY? I have no idea, but they do.
It's called AIF, "apoptosis-inducing factor", and once it gets loose, it goes to the cell nucleus and basically takes an axe to the chromosomes.
So the cell dies, of course. They keep us alive, and also kill us. And what's more, they're not even native to our cells. They started up as independent symbiotic organisms with their own DNA, and now they seem to be running the show. Inside our cells, they live in a protein tubule network, where they move around, fuse, grow, and divide on their own.
Are we just glorified hosts for the Mitochondrial Collective Intelligence? Maybe. .
In order to make that basic thing, we need a molecular version of a jet engine.
If you have just 5 minutes, take a look at this engine, running in every living organism, making a simple molecule that conducts power for almost every chemical reaction in our cells.
I guarantee that you'll be blown away if you haven't seen this before. It's keeping you alive right now.
So, how does life start?
We can't begin evolution until we have a frikkin turbine engine that generates chemical energy?
How do you make that complex thing without the ATP in the first place?
___
One of my co-workers got sick, developed rhabdomyolysis after a gym session.
The illness produced quite a fever.
The fever is caused by mitochondrial breakdown: the protons leak through the membrane, causing the energy to be lost as heat.
Once that happens, the Hydrogen and Oxygen reaction to water gets decoupled, and they make peroxides and peroxynitrites, which blow holes through the membranes, and the mitochondrion just falls apart.
Mitochondria themselves are amazing. They are functionally sort of capacitors, holding an electric charge that runs the ATP making machine.
They also hold a self destruct mechanism for DNA.
WHY? I have no idea, but they do.
It's called AIF, "apoptosis-inducing factor", and once it gets loose, it goes to the cell nucleus and basically takes an axe to the chromosomes.
So the cell dies, of course. They keep us alive, and also kill us. And what's more, they're not even native to our cells. They started up as independent symbiotic organisms with their own DNA, and now they seem to be running the show. Inside our cells, they live in a protein tubule network, where they move around, fuse, grow, and divide on their own.
Are we just glorified hosts for the Mitochondrial Collective Intelligence? Maybe. .
