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Mitochondria are just a hack to integrate efficient oxygen metabolism into archaean cells, and I wish people wouldn't worship them so much. Mitochondria started
by andrewflnr 3y ago
Mitochondria are just a hack to integrate efficient oxygen metabolism into archaean cells, and I wish people wouldn't worship them so much. Mitochondria started as free living cells that had that metabolism. There's no reason life on a different world couldn't develop it directly in the same lineage as cells destined for multicellularity.
- Jedd 3y agoWorship? I appreciate I only have a sample size of one - but then, so does the 'it's no big deal' crowd. On this planet we have no alternative routes to the same outcome, and no clear evidence that alternative routes a) couldn't have come about, or b) did but were subsequently out-competed. I suggest everyone with a Fermi-opinion is in the same camp - massively speculative and a single datapoint (unless you count the myriad (in their absence) counter-points).
- andrewflnr 3y agoThe original bacteria that were engulfed to become mitochondria are the "alternative route". It's clearly possible for a cell to have oxygen metabolism on its own because that's how we got here. So the question is, is endosymbiosis the only way to integrate that with a large, complex cell? When you phrase it that way, it should be clear which way the odds lie. But yes, "worship" is not quite the right word for whatever obsession it is that people have with mitochondria.