Tagged: evolution

Analects of the Core: Lane on evolution of cellular complexity

Mitochondria are a silly place to store genes.  They are often glibly called the powerhouses of  the cell, but the parallel is quite exact.  Mitochondrial membranes generate an electric charge, operating across a few millionths of a millimetre, with the same voltage as a bolt of lightning, a thousand times more powerful than domestic writing.  […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on eukaryotes and mitochondrial jumping genes

The chimeric ancestor of the eukaryotes apparently succumbed to an invasion of jumping genes from its mitochondria. — Nick Lane, in his discussion of the evolution of cellular complexity, page 115, in Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, a book now studied in CC106: Biodiversity