liyamchitayat

Hi! for point 2# I had many debates about this with Prof. that are cell biologists, and if you google "Are mitochondria alive," the answer Gemini will give you is no. This is very controversial in my academic circles, but I appreciate your thoughts!

Hi! thanks for taking time to read :)

Those other membrane bubbles inside out cells don't have any of the machines we expect to be associated with cellular life- but you never actually know!

Also, this is def not a 1-off, and happened many times, including chloroplasts in this new nitroplast we found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroplast

Yes! and there are additional cases, like the nitroplasts that we recently discovered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroplast

One interesting thing is that many reactions actually have to occur in their own compartment- and since we have not lost the mtDNA, it may suggest that having an additional control center is beneficial.there are some interesting theories about the relations of that to lifespan https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/mitochondria-are-flingin....

Hi!

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!