I agree with you, which is why I wrote this- but if you google "are mitochondria alive" gemini says it isn't. And yes, the cells in your heart have an effective and potenitial niche!
We seem to have many tools to engineer viruses, but few to engineer mitochondria- perhaps considering them as alive could change that!
More seriously, considering something as being alive in order to engineer them better does not necessarily change the fact of them actually being alive or not, in my opinion.
This seems to require a high amount of curation of training inputs, but I haven't done real digging into it, just going off the more casual "all of stackoverflow" or "all of reddit" type comments frequently thrown around. But if there is such a curation I'd agree, I just don't think there is that curation.
And my grandmother is a bicycle.
>Yes, mitochondria are alive, though they are not considered "living" in the same way as a cell because they can't function independently...
Maybe it's learning!
I think this article is talking to people who haven't internalized the details of the scientific consensus. Those people are still going around, talking about "life" and making decisions based on the flawed understanding this article is critiquing. I think it's likely that the thing that "has been missed" is not narrowly scientific in the way you seem to be thinking - but more about broad implications and worldview.
Side note: previously I was funded by NSF and NASA to study such questions from biophysics and astrobiology.
That said, this was a delightful read. I did not realize or conceive of mitochondria as, like bacteria in our bodies, independent living networks with unique genomes, evolution, and flows of information and energy.
Reading about the health benefits of “external mitochondria” made me think about when I hug my dog: are we exchanging mitochondria, perhaps?
Are they? I was under the impression that mitochondria are closer to pseudo-cells living inside human cells.
Wikipedia seems to confirm this [1]:
> Although most of a eukaryotic cell's DNA is contained in the cell nucleus, the mitochondrion has its own genome ("mitogenome") that is substantially similar to bacterial genomes.
In the cells of extant organisms, the vast majority of the proteins in the
mitochondria (numbering approximately 1500 different types in mammals) are
coded by nuclear DNA, but the genes for some, if not most, of them are
thought to be of bacterial origin, having been transferred to the eukaryotic
nucleus during evolution. (citing [2])
mito is like <100k bp vs 3000000k bp in human genome (bp = base pair = "character" in a string)
principle derives from the concept of "the selfish gene" or "the red queen" these famous books on the topic. Arms races between X and Y chromosome. Arms race between nucleus and mitochondria, and so on.
or put it this way. why do all animals have sex? because it generates gene sequences that confer fitness more efficiently than self-replication (which is the typical repro method of unix programmers)... .. generates such gene sequences for NUCLEAR DNA that is, mito DNA comes from mom only (the red queen.. .. "mitochondrial eve" ... "y chromosomal adam".. etc). and thus the mito is fundamentally unable to wield the power of evolution, completely evolutionarily outclassed by those nuclear chromosomes. thus exporting all its genes to the nucleus, conferring advantage to all such progeny with their superior power supply
Energy flow is the difference. but then everything has an energy flow. Losing and gaining electrons. So it is possible that literally everything is alive, don’t you think? Maybe the problem is is that we’re trying to make a definition where none ultimately really exists.
Defining an arbitrary line and then attaching labels does not really add to understanding.
A label (abstraction) allows us to bring corresponding tools that were developed for it. If you can count trees then the same math can be useful to count people.
I have no idea in what context “mitochondria are alive” notion might be useful (but it doesn’t mean there is none).
This accurately describes much of science...
> My heart can exist independently of me, and be transplanted into other people, but does it mean that it is alive?
The cells that comprise your heart are very much alive, but they will die without support infrastructure. They live, they replicate, they die -- like every cell in your body. If I relocate you to the moon without support infrastructure, you would die too -- and yet (I think?) you are probably alive.
It is more related to the philosophy of science.
P.S. I'm not implying his grandfather was Gimli even if Gimli theoretically had two grandfathers.
The philosophy of science is something that has only existed since the practice of science became widespread.
It seems to me that the alternative to people being alive quite quickly reduces to nothing is alive by way of information theory.
Since all humans were just 2 cells at one point. It seems to follow that the entirely of the code for what a human is, is contained in just those 2 cells. Not just code for a finger. But even code for our deeply ingrained fear of snakes. Was just at one point contained in those 2 cells. Kind of blows your mind.
If they are separate living organisms, then there seems something recursive about humans if they can be just 2 cells at one point.
No, that's not true. Those two cells require a lot of care and nurturing and education before they become a person.
Have you heard of HeLa cells?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
They have a full compliment of human DNA, but no one in their right mind would argue that they are a person.
"Potentiality" - this view argues that regardless of whether the fetus is a person, it has the potential to become a person, and thus inherits some moral consideration.
"Value of Human Life" - the argument that human life - at any stage of development - has intrinsic value and thus should be protected.
We do not totally understand how it works, but there are heritable traits not passed via DNA - the one often in the news is women with emotional trauma pass that trauma on to their children, and those children show those symptoms even if raised in a happy home with 0 contact with the mother.
It is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one. One which if we try and reason based on how special nature treats embryos quickly falls apart anyways...
"Here, we propose a new analogy, inspired by recent work in machine learning and neuroscience: that the genome encodes a generative model of the organism. In this scheme, by analogy with variational autoencoders, the genome does not encode either organismal form or developmental processes directly, but comprises a compressed space of latent variables."
1. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15908 2. discussion with the authors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QaMnUBkmz4
The potential for a new person exists. Just as the potential for new people exist in a collection of sperm and egg cells.
The only difference, which you seem to be latching onto, is that now that potential has been turned into a more specific one. Why do you think that makes any real difference? It seems like an arbitrary and abstract argument that depends on an almost mystical perspective.
> This is a strong argument against abortion.
It really isn't. In fact, it's fallacious, because to accept the argument, you have to accept premises that produce the desired conclusion - i.e. it's question-begging, assuming its conclusion.
Being a person involves some level of thought, not just existing. If you ripped my brain completely out, and kept my body alive, most would consider the brain removal the time of death. That's when the person they knew died.
The cognitive dissonance is too strong, this entire subject should honestly be banned from HN.
Otherwise you're in the same camp that believes a sky daddy breathes a soul into your baby at conception and that IVF is the work of Satan.
To reframe it: what you’re really doing is arguing about the definition of alive. In this case my opinion is: who cares. I fail to see how expanding the definition or being precise here adds anything.
Refining the definition of something often helps provoke new understanding and tests of the limit of that refinement. It seems like a critical requirement in the "form a hypothesis" step of the scientific method.
What if we do it all on the Moon, or Mars? How does Gaia feel about it? We already know that it's theoretically possible, if not yet achievable in practice, to create artificial environments capable of supporting human life indefinitely - or, on a long enough timescale, bootstrap an independent, self-sufficient biosphere. The two are, in the limit, the same thing anyway.
Or are we going to argue that human technology is, by extension through causality, a part of life on Earth, and therefore a part of Gaia itself? Is Gaia in all of us, and will it persist after Earth dies if humanity is still around somewhere else?
All in all, I suppose the correct definitions of terms are the ones that are most useful in a given context :). "Categories were made for man, not man for the categories", and all that.
At which point we could say that the "supporting infrastructure" of the rest of a human body isn't necessary for the heart to be independently alive
Exactly, if mitochondria is alive then so is chloroplasts and who knows what else. The line needs to be drawn somewhere, also life and death isn't as clear-cut as many used to believe
We are bound to the myriad other pieces of DNA that all have different evolutionary histories within us, we are symbiotically bound to many strands of life on many levels. We are just one strand, a part of a singular whole, bound to all strands of life beyond us. This view of life led me to science. I totally think that this view of biology is not properly appreciated by most scientists.
But this article was presented as a scientific piece and made the explicit claim that mitochondria were alive which is a semantic argument that doesn't have a scientific answer.
It is a well written piece that made it to the top of hacker news and it's great to see the debate.
But it just isn't true that mitochondria are alive by our currently accepted definition of alive. This is an old debate in biology that was settled years ago. There is nothing in this paper that wasn't known to mainstream science decades ago, but it is presented as a novel scientific viewpoint.
Sorry, but that’s an overreach. There are many “accepted” definitions” of life across different scientific fields. According to Wikipedia, there are at least 123 definitions of life — and there is not scientific consensus. Mitochondria are alive based on some definitions and not alive based on others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
Expecting life to have total autonomy in self-sustainability is absurd. Otherwise somatic cells or even people would be not alive.
And the argument that mitochondria are not alive because they can’t encode all their own proteins — well, I’ll point out that humans can’t produce all amino acids, either. As a thought experiment, if humans couldn’t produce a certain essential protein — and had to rely on a symbiont, would that mean humans weren’t alive?
Finally I’ll point out that Mitochondria can be healthy or flourishing — and they can be sick and die. How can something that is not alive, die?
It’s ok to argue for a narrow definition. But please don’t present this argument as though you are the defender of clear scientific conclusions. There simply isn’t consensus on this across the sciences.
There has been debate over whether mitochondria can be called alive since at least 1890. For many years the vast majority of mitochondrial biologists have avoided the binary alive/not alive classification because there is a spectrum of 'livingness' and we can draw the line anywhere we like.
Picking a different line position is not scientific, it is semantics. What do we mean by the term 'alive'?
The article presented a profound new way of viewing the living state of mitochondria that was going to transform the world. It said nothing new, and failed to make any reference to the long term debate.
But it was a nicely written interesting article and mitochondria are going to be hugely important therapeutic area in the future.
"Clinical potential of sensory neurites in the heart and their role in decision-making"
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/11000-year-old-living-do...
Your heart cannot exist independently of you as a heart. It is only a heart in name, as it does not function as a heart. Its identity as a heart depends on its ability to function as a heart within some organism. The same can be said for any part or organ. A severed hand is a hand in name only. A corpse is not a body, as it no longer functions as one.
A transplanted heart becomes a heart once more. A reattached hand becomes a hand once more. If you think this is weird, then you haven't done your metaphysical homework. Why should it be weird? It could only be weird if you have made certain (unexamined) metaphysical presuppositions. The structure of a heart removed from an organism persists long enough that it can become reintegrated into an organism such that it functions once again as a heart.
But also note that the matter composing a heart itself isn't fixed. About 1% of heart cells are replaced per year in the young. So if function and structure can survive transient material change, and the matter that makes up a heart can assume and lose and reassume its identity as part of a heart, then why can't a heart lose its identity as a heart when removed, and regain its after it is implanted back in?
Have you considered that this is a more formal version of a Bill Nye science explainer, but for adults?
The reason I say this is that while unintended (I think) your post has a, “of course they’re alive, we’ve known this forever” vibe, which can inadvertently come across as condescending.
I don’t mean to pick on you, we’re all guilty of such speak when we deem concepts to be obvious or well known.
Your post reminds me of the “1 in 10,000” XKCD comic:
Again, I don’t disagree that your knowledge of history and science is correct. Am just curious why you wrote your explainer in the way you did.
Mitochondria are fascinating and there is still a huge amount to learn about them but they are totally dependent on the cell's machinery. Most of their genes, the code for their structure, are in the nuclear DNA. A glaring omission if you are trying to make the case that mitochondria are independently living. My heart can exist independently of me, and be transplanted into other people, but does it mean that it is alive?
The implication of the whole article is that there something we have missed. This really isn't the case. Lynn Margulis's endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria was challenged by many, and it did spark a scientific debate - that's how science works. She won the argument comprehensively decades ago and is well established science. There have been many such endosymbiotic events in the history of life - there are subfields of evolutionary biology that study these processes.