4.5 Stars for a Breathtaking Science Book on Our Essential Building Blocks

books:


	• Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life Nick Lane Oxford University Press, USA, 2006 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

4.5 Stars for a Breathtaking Science Book on Our Essential Building Blocks

I read the 2006 paperback of the originally 2005 book. If you are interested in evolution, ageing, symbiosis, the origins of sex and sexes and the origin of multicellular organisms, this will be a fascinating reading not to be left out. Even though I have to admit that SOME pages have numbed my receptiveness (introductary apologies by the author accepted) and that he tends to write in circles or rather spirals, overall, it is an easy to read book, compared with some others on similar topics. Another mild criticism may be the odd reproduction of popular, but not really scientific vocabulary, such as "races" and that birds are supposedly something different than reptiles/dinosaurs.

Not a criticism, just a necessary hint at additional reading for some points he is making. Even though he seems to be correct in them, they can be seen in an additional light. Not only mitochondria caused sex and sexes, but also various parasites (disregarding for a moment the original "parasitic" nature of mitochondria). Which raises the question: There are really TWO causes? Considering that 10% of our body weight are mitochondria, it should be fascinating that only 10% our cells are human (with the rest representing commensals and parasites). Read more about parasites in e.g. Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are and Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures. Especially about an alternative taxonomy according to symbiosis, read Symbiotic Planet: A New Look At Evolution. Not only on humans as (very literal!) parasites of other humans, but also about the reverse effect of body size and ageing WITHIN a species than described BETWEEN species in this book and anomalous ageing in humans for other reasons, read Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body. Also, Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World (Popular Science) by Nick Lane himself goes into evolution and ageing from a different perspective.

Using mitochondria for genetics, read e.g. The Seven Daughters of Eve and for yourself Trace Your Roots with DNA: Use Your DNA to Complete Your Family Tree.

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Astonishingly good. Didn't want to put it down.

I must had ADD or whatever. I often get interested in a book and then don't finish it. But this book I was hard to put down even at 2AM. This is one of my favorite books ever. You might have to have a certain kind of brain to get interested in this kind of stuff, the stuff of ideas, and if you do you will gather a basket full of ideas that will help you make sense of a wide variety of subjects. For example, sex. Sexual reproduction was foisted upon life on this planet about two billion years ago when two cells/individuals joined to reproduce. The mitochondria from each of the cells/individuals fought to the death over which mitochondria would prevail in their offspring. Evolutionary advantage favored those where the "female" would contribute their (her) mitochondria and the "male" cell/individual would not. We've been stuck/blessed with this system ever since.

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mitochondria and everything

More interesting than most novels. A plausible and erudite explanation of why multicellular life, aging and sex, all must exist; being logically consequential to mitochondria. A grand synthesis.

There is more to it than natural selection

While the author may not have all the answers, the questions he asks are right on, and he makes a very good attempt at answering them. Questions like: Why don't bacteria get any larger? How did organized cell suicide (apoptosis) evolve in multi-celled organisms. Why do multi-celled organisms reproduce sexually? Why do we die of old age?

Bacteria/Mitocohonria/Cloroplasts are all limited in size by the physical properties of how they generate energy: the proton pump. Mitochondria must have their own DNA. So evolution in eukaryotes is a symbiotic tension between the nucleus and the mitochondria.

All this stuff was new to me and I found it fascinating. One area I would like to find out more about is why mitochondria must have their own DNA. The author's argument is that the mitochondria need DNA in order to rapidly respond to problems in the reparation chain. Since there are many mitochondria in a cell and only one nucleus, the nucleus is too centralized to deal with different problems in each individual mitochondria. This explanation to me seems somewhat wanting. Seems like if there were a way for the DNA to be centralized in the nucleus, nature would have done it, even if was complicated.

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Power, Sex & Suicide

A review aimed at science teachers:

Nick Lane's Power, Sex, Suicide. Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life (Oxford 2005, £10) provided me with every reason to wish I was still the same age as when Monty Python were in their heyday. I nearly poked a fellow Virgin passenger, deep in a Women's Weekly, in the ribs to exclaim, `Guess what! Did you know our endoplasmic reticulum is bacterial in origin!' but I was too scared she would respond with `Guess what! Brittany Spears wore a lace dress to the Oscars,' so I behaved myself, for once.

This book is as remarkable as Oxygen, the Molecule that Made the World. Nearly every page brims with exciting teacher-friendly snippets: mitochondria contribute 10% of our total mass and up to 40% of certain cells. Every chapter encapsulates discussion on long debated issues and reaches out for cross disciplinary intercourse: evolutionary biology and chemistry (iron-sulfur minerals catalysed the pH differential in primordial bacteria, in a semblance to the bioenergetics of the hydrogen pump of the mitochondrial inner membrane), fractal mathematics (power laws in biology), and genetics (the gene transfer `ratchet' which drives mitochondrial (and chloroplast) genes to the nucleus but not the other way round, and why these two organelles always keep a few of their original genes). Best of all, this is a book summarises of 21st century research results and debates, and therefore is highly recommended for any teacher of senior biology, and probably chemistry, too. Here are just some of the highlights (for me) anyway:

* Mitochondria control apoptosis - the process of cell destruction that lies at the heart of embryology - and aging.
* Mitochondria do this by leaking free radicals - but there are checks and balances here, so that a small increase in free radicals simply signals the nuclear mitochondrial genes (a process known as a retrograde response) to be transcribed, enabling more respiratory complexes to be built. Too much free radical leakage for repair and the apoptosis cascade ensues.
* Mitochondria are the reason there are two sexes: it is well known that, in general, paternal mitochondria are excluded during fertilization. However, mitochondrial `fitness' is also tested severely during oocyte development in female fetuses (ie, before birth, when oocytes are culled from around 7 to 2 million.). Early in fetal development, when the fertilized egg divides, the mitochondria do not, so that the original population is reduced from about 100,000 in the zygote to around perhaps only 10 (according to one researcher) per cell. In each cell, these few mitochondria circle the nucleus, as if there is an exchange of information about compatibility of nuclear and mitochondrial genes coding for mitochondrial proteins. All this was news to me.
* Mitochondria have two functions: to produce energy (ATP) and to generate heat. There is general evidence for natural selection in human populations operating at mitochondrial level: people living at the poles have more uncoupling of respiratory pathways, thereby generating more heat and the price for them may be a decreased fertility. People whose genetic history developed in tropical regions (for example, African peoples) have greater aerobic capacity - but the price is greater intolerance of fatty Western diets - making them particularly vulnerable to diseases linked with free radical damage - diabetes and heart disease.
* How did Lane come to realize that mitochondria rule the world? While researching methods for predicting the success of organ transplants, he discovered that if the mitochondria die within minutes of being transplanted (for example, when they come in contact with oxygen again, via the recipient's blood), the organ is doomed, no matter how healthy it looks. This is the kind of story that will rope in the kids, for sure!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

If it weren't for mitochondria, scientists argue, we'd all still be single-celled bacteria. Indeed, these tiny structures inside our cells are important beyond imagining. Without mitochondria, we would have no cell suicide, no sculpting of embryonic shape, no sexes, no menopause, no aging.
In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, Nick Lane brings together the latest research in this exciting field to show how our growing insight into mitochondria has shed light on how complex life evolved, why sex arose (why don't we just bud?), and why we age and die. These findings are of fundamental importance, both in understanding life on Earth, but also in controlling our own illnesses, and delaying our degeneration and death. Readers learn that two billion years ago, mitochondria were probably bacteria living independent lives and that their capture within larger cells was a turning point in the evolution of life, enabling the development of complex organisms. Lane describes how mitochondria have their own DNA and that its genes mutate much faster than those in the nucleus. This high mutation rate lies behind our aging and certain congenital diseases. The latest research suggests that mitochondria play a key role in degenerative diseases such as cancer. We also discover that mitochondrial DNA is passed down almost exclusively via the female line. That's why it has been used by some researchers to trace human ancestry daughter-to-mother, to "Mitochondrial Eve," giving us vital information about our evolutionary history.
Written by Nick Lane, a rising star in popular science, Power, Sex, Suicide is the first book for general readers on the nature and function of these tiny, yet fascinating structures.

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