Mitochondria Adam

Nobody completely dies ::::

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H O M E - C R Y P T - L I N K S  - R S S -  F E E D -  B I O
Mitrichondria Adam

"Truth and morning become light with time." -- Ethiopian Proverb

The more sure you are of science or politics the more things change. Just when 
the facts were about as solid as you thought they could be here comes a 
different premise.

Scientists in Denmark turned biology on it's head with what was the accepted 
wisdom about mitochondria. What you thought you knew about mitochondria was 
probably wrong if you thought your mitochondria only comes from your mother. It 
appears there is an exception.

In every cell in your body you have mitochondria, lots of them and the 
assumption has been you get it from your mother. They are small turbo-charged 
power generators which appears to be evolved from bacteria (according to a 
theory by Lynn Margolis a few years ago) which is an organelle which lives 
outside the nucleus and generates ATP, the fuel necessary for life.

Mitochondria are little energy generators
which manufacture the energy we need to live.

These little organelles are as small as bacteria which are one hundred thousand 
times smaller than your cells. They make ATP which fuels everything in your 
body. They are so small that you could take a billion of them and easily fit 
them on a grain of sand.

As often happens with science, theories are constantly being tested and new 
research improve on those theories. Danish scientists, Marianne Schwartz, a 
geneticist at Copenhagen University Hospital, et al, have published their 
research in the New England Journal of Medicine, which document an exception to 
the assumption that mitochondria is exclusively from mothers. They discovered 
muscle cells containing paternal mitochondria.

The muscle cells had mitochondria with a "paternal" genetic defect. Other 
cells; in blood, skin and hair did not have the defect and the genetic pattern 
indicated they were "maternal" mitochondria.

Since both sperm and egg made the embryo and the egg contains about 100,000 
maternal mitochondria the sperm contains about 100 copies of _paternal_ 
mitochondria. Apparently enough paternal mitochondria survived to get into 
those cells which differentiated into muscle cells.

"Evolutionary biologists have assumed that each person's mitochondrial DNA is a 
copy of their mother's, their grandmother's and so on, back to the dawn of the 
species...Dr. R. Sanders Williams, dean of Duke University's medical school, 
said the discovery could "generate new debate about the validity of the Eve 
hypothesis." (Daniel Q. Haney, Sunday Gazette-Mail - Aug 25, 2002)

I don't think this is going to have much influence on "Mitochondria Eve" since 
(1) this appears to be an exception, and (2) paternal mitochondria is unlikely 
to get into other differentiated cells. In the research paternal mitochondria 
were only found in muscle cells.

Mitochondrial Eve, the MOTHER of all mothers is assumed to have lived in Africa 
about 170,000 years ago and that won't change. She was also known as "African 
Eve." Mitochondria are the genes, which are different than genes in a cell's 
nucleus, which are compared by forensic scientists or techs to determine true 
identity of corpses, like the real identity of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas 
II - which was verified by comparing those genes.

Humans are more than 99.9% of us identical. We're the same except for that 
small percentage of our DNA which is our unique diversity, which makes each of 
us different from all the rest. Inherited differences are a recombination of 
our parent's DNA, found in each cell nucleus. DNA is our recipe for proteins 
that in all of us determine our biochemical differences and sameness. We are 
all to some degree related. And, we all have a common ancestor all the way back 
to our common ancestor which is LUCA ("Last Uniform Common Ancestor"), which is 
the genesis of our species.

It is our differences, our diversity which makes all of us, of the same 
species, who we really are as individuals.

It is that less than one percent that makes us interesting or boring (to 
someone). It is that diversity which also determines our shape and size and 
that genetic difference which makes me better looking than you.
Mother Nature is Also a Cruel Bitch!

Mutations caused by damage which have environmental causation or free radical 
damage to genes by oxygen leakage from the process of power generation by 
mitochondria and the mechanism for transcribing DNA though several steps to 
make amino acids which then make protein may or may not improve upon fitness; 
although I'd rather say, "successfulness" for reproduction and that, among many 
other things, assist evolutionary modification of you and I; the hosts for that 
world of cells which live in us. Along with our cells which are only about 10% 
of the cells which live in us are the cells belonging to commensal (beneficial 
and symbiotic) bacteria and parasites too, amounting to almost 90% of what is 
not us lives in there too.

In each of our cells there are mitochondrion organelles which like bacterial 
have membranes and inside those membranes are more curly membranes and each 
contains it's own genes and from 5 o about 10 copies of those genes and in each 
cell there are as many as hundreds of mitochondria, each with it's many copies 
so within each cell are thousands of copies of genes, all of which different 
from the genes in the DNA in the cell's nucleus.

Mitochondria is a respiration device. It makes the energy, called ATP for 
organs and tissue cells but it isn't spark proof. Remember, oxygen is 
combustible and during the process of making energy; that is, respiration, 
there is free radical leakage which is causes damage to cells and leads to 
sensescence - just another way of saying "aging."

Cells are damaged by free radicals. The body's antioxidants as-if by some magic 
formula, fixes the damage but when it can't fix them, cells dispose of 
themselves. Genes are damaged by oxidative stress among other things, like 
pollution and radiation. These genes are attacked from 10,000 to 100,000 times 
a day. That is about once every second.

The cells which are not repairable commit suicide; they call that "apoptosis," 
which is dying for the sake of the whole body or a better way of saying it may 
be to refer to the body as the host. It was in the 90s that researchers 
discovered that apoptosis is not governed by genes from DNA in the cell 
nucleus. Apoptosis is a process which is governed by the mitochondria.

Some cells just decide to go somewhere else and continue to grow and they 
become cancers. Failure of the damaged cell to commit suicide (apoptosis) is a 
root cause of cancer.

"Without programmed cell death, the bonds that bind cells in complex 
multicellular organisms might never have evolved. And because programmed cell 
death depends on mitochondria, it may be that multicellular organisms could not 
exist without mitochondria." (Nick Lane, Power, Sex, Suicide, Mitochrondria and 
the Meaning of Life - Oxford U Pr - 2005)

All eukaryote multicellular plants and animals have mitochondria.

Free radical leakage leading to oxidative stress is also believed to be a root 
cause of what makes us age, to-wit: "senescence." Damage builds up over a 
lifetime and this steady damage causes degenerative diseases and affects a 
body's mortality, reducing our longevity.

Many inherited conditions are also linked to free radical damage. They increase 
with age. They are not selected against unless they affect "fitness" for 
reproduction (in populations). In populations, degenerative diseases from 
mutations which are a also a result of free radical damage generally manifest 
after reproduction and are not affected by natural selection.

"Mitochondrial diseases typically affect metabolically active tissues such as 
the muscle and brain, producing seizures, some movement disorders, blindness, 
deafness, and muscular degeneration." (Nick Lane)

Nature is not kind and we are all in a desperate race against time and 
oxidative stress.

Like our cells, a lifetime of accumulated oxidative stress takes it's toll
and you and I will wear ourselves out and die.
     Eventually, we all lose.

Oxidative Stress

Free Radical leakage is the cause of oxidative stress. It is just oxygen so why 
should it be so dangerous? Because oxygen is dangerous. Before there was 
multicellular life on the planet there was no oxygen. Oxygen accumulated in the 
atmosphere as a bacterial waste product. It is the reason things burn. Remove 
the oxygen from a fire and it goes out. Provide too much oxygen and everything 
burns; it becomes combustible. It is sold as a treatment for beauty; it is the 
"elixir of life" and there are "oxygen bars" and health clinics where it is 
hailed as a miracle therapy. There are some charlatans who promote it as a cure 
for cancer. But in fact oxygen keeps us breathing and alive now but eventually 
will kill us.

We are also sold the idea of taking antioxidants to protect us from the scourge 
of free radicals but what the body doesn't make it is unlikely will come from 
eating it. But what is the harm, you say, from eating too much fruits and 
vegetables and taking supplements? Often too much of anything, no matter how 
good you think it is, can be a bad thing - but I won't get into that here or 
now.

While oxygen is toxic and just the right amount of it, which we need to breath, 
is the amount of it in our atmosphere (21%). Not all life depends on it, not in 
those quantities anyway and some, not at all. Extreme life cannot assimilate it 
at all but if you and I stopped breathing it, we would be dead, whatever that 
means, in just a few minutes. I hesitate to define what is death because what 
is thermodynamically in equilibrium is considered dead but if it is a virus it 
is only technically dead until it gets inside the nucleus of your cells. And 
dead people may stop breathing but still return to disequilibrium and one of 
the laws of physics, specifically the "first law of thermodynamics" says you 
can neither destroy nor create energy or matter - so if what is dead is still 
capable of life in another form, even partially, is it really dead?

There are those who believe there is no science supporting the idea that our 
bodies must degrade. I believe there is. Nobody has ever extended life beyond 
about 120 years nor do I think it will ever be possible unless the body stops 
oxidizing, which can't happen as long as oxygen is extracted by mitochondria 
and utilized for the manufacture of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate molecule), the 
unit of energy necessary for keeping the human machine running.

Therefore, death is as natural as life. It is a product as life and 
reproduction and after that the body stops being YOU but genes live on where 
they are inherited and chunks of it invade other hosts when infected by viruses 
and there is gene drift. And that part of gene transfer makes our genes at 
least capable of being immortal. But the host for those genes is not immortal. 
It becomes something else but it will not be you. Our bodies are programmed (to 
use a computer term) to age; to become decrepit and then to die in the human 
technical sense. No matter how much your watch your diet and how much you run 
or you jog, you will meet up with decrepitude, timed sensensence and you will 
die.

That fact is eminently clear to biologists. When salmon swim upstream and 
spawn, they die. After a marigold blooms it goes to seed and as those seeds are 
spread about by wind and birds, the particular marigold dies. If you go on a 
caloric restricted diet and do all those other healthy things like eat your 
spinach and exercise you may save yourself a few more years, but that is all - 
and the years you gain may be equal to the time you spent working out. Some 
might not consider that much of a trade-off. You won't gain 20 or 50 years. You 
may gain a year or two and that may be stretching it.

However the body is not subject to the same restraints as the second law of 
thermodynamics which is why bearings rust, the blades on knives get dull but 
life takes its energy from the sun and environment which is why you can add a 
couple of months and dump entropy back to the environment. Your DNA is the 
recipe and you can repair yourself but we aren't starfish and we can't grow new 
arms or an entire new body.

AS robust as we are at regeneration, making more cells to replace those which 
committed suicide, a starfish also regenerates more than we do but it also dies 
and so do we.

[E]volution has devised for all of us a system of maintenance and repair that 
is remarkably efficient. It's a genuine curiosity that evolution, after 
creating such intricate and comprehensive systems of repair, refuses to deploy 
them in a way that would maintain the body in a state of peak performance. This 
is the classical problem of aging, the problem that has baffled and confused 
generations of evolutionary theorists. (Joshua Mitteldorf, The Humanist - 
January 1, 2002)

Not all of our cells divide and create new cells. Our brain cells don't replace 
themselves but they do keep on dying.

(August Weismann in the 1890s) ..."Weismann was the first to speculate that the 
evolutionary reason for aging and death has something to do with the good' of 
the species. He called it "making room" in the environment. When their lease 
was up, the old would have the good grace to pack their bags and vacate the 
premises, leaving space for the young. The constant turnover of the population 
would help to maintain its diversity, and make the species more adaptable to 
changing circumstances." (Humanist)

I recall reading somewhere that we may exist for the good, not of us, but the 
bacteria that gave us life in the first place and they keep us around to help 
keep the planet in sync and when this collective bacterial brain no longer 
needs us they will get rid of us too, like the other 99% of all species which 
walked or brachiated or swam or flew here before us. That may be farfetched, or 
it may not be? It is just one hypothesis.

Weismann's point is that the only thing necessary for life is to reproduce and 
when reproduction is done there is no need to exist. That is why the salmon 
die. That is why after reproduction we age and break down. After reproduction 
we become superfluous. Nature doesn't give a damn about keeping us alive. Only 
our money and the doctors can do that for us and no amount of money will keep 
us alive forever. There is no real positive advantage or contribution for 
post-reproductives to make to the population. Only populations evolve and after 
reproduction there is nothing worth evolving unless there is a benefit to those 
which do reproduce.

The only way post-reproductive humans could be enough of a benefit for natural 
selection is if they were a benefit to reproduction.

Here is an excellent explanation why aging cannot be part of the natural 
selection process:

"In the 1960s, evolutionary theorist George Williams argued that benefits to 
the group are too weak a force to be invoked as an evolutionary explanation. 
Evolution is in the business of testing random mutations that first arise in a 
single individual. The first test for any new trait is whether it can progress 
from the individual to achieve prevalence in a group; only traits that passed 
this test can ever be tested in competition group against group. Hence 
individual selection will trump group selection every time, Williams said. 
Aging and the imposition of a finite lifespan may well have the potential to 
help maintain population diversity, but this benefit accrues only to the group. 
Aging harms the individual who ages and puts that individual at a selective 
disadvantage; hence aging can never be selected as an adaptation." (The 
Humanist)
Just Being Not Here

Astrobiology is a relatively new science, the synthesis of biology, astronomy 
and paleontology - the objective of which is to gather information about our 
biological and cosmological past, including our universe and from that 
extrapolate what the future holds for us. Not to become too nonplussed, we 
won't be here. Nothing will be here.

Although I do think it is coming sooner, rather than later - given the damage 
we are causing to our own little space in the cosmos with space junk, pollution 
and the result which is global warming and what this will do for our 
short-lived species. I say short because we haven't been around all that 
terribly long.

Geologist Peter Ward and astronomer Donald Brownlee have proposed several 
scenarios for the end. They say the Earth's bio-diversity was at it's peak or 
apogee just about 250 million years ago so we're on the downside now.

They speculate the Earth will return to a period when it resembled the first 
4000 million years, the Hadean eon, which name doesn't derive from Hades for no 
reason. It is going to be really hot, a whole lot less diverse and animals will 
disappear as will the oceans. Well you can guess the rest. It will be grim. I 
don't know about you, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Nothing lasts forever; including us. Did you think it did? If there is any 
consolation to any of this, there won't be anymore suffering. There won't be 
anymore handicapped who get fucked by the system and there won't be anymore 
inequities. Pain will be gone.
Everybody will be very,
     very -not here.

The good thing is nothing really dies.
Your molecules will go back to the earth, to the bacteria you inherited them 
from.

     You (that is; your constituent elements) will live on.

     "The law of conservation of mass/matter, also known as law of mass/matter 
conservation says that the mass of a closed system will remain constant, 
regardless of the processes acting inside the system. An equivalent statement 
is that mass cannot be created/destroyed, although it may be rearranged in 
space, and changed into different types of particles. This implies that for any 
chemical process in a closed system, the mass of the reactants must equal the 
mass of the products. This is also the central idea behind the first law of 
thermodynamics." http://en.wikipedia.org/

Hank Roth
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Hank Roth (on the Internet since 1982)
Worm Hole (Home) - The Crypt - Hank Roth (Bio)

While I don't use a standard blog (weblog software) mostly because I've been 
doing this too long - having been there with Ike when the precursor to the 
Internet, Arpanet got started and every step of the way since, I can't get into 
all the many fads over the years (now it is social networking), but I have been 
an observer and participant in events which shape the world since my time with 
NSA and with Army Security and as a voice security cryptologist in the White 
House for the President, and the War Room at the Pentagon for the Chairman of 
the Chiefs of Staff plus two wars. You could say this site is one of the better 
kept secrets [grin] on the InterNUT. You are invited back as often as you would 
like to see what I and others, I trust, may be saying.
-- Hank Roth

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