People are complicated, right down to the cellular level

Sex Is a Coping Mechanism

Did sexual reproduction evolve to keep up with mitochondrial mutation?

BY JILL NEIMARKILLUSTRATION BY FRANCESCO IZZO

Excerpt:

That link lies in the fact that mitochondria are not just cellular batteries. Billions of years ago they were actually independent organisms. They are an example of how the human body is not entirely “human.” Our guts are full of trillions of foreign bacterial cells; our DNA is riddled with shards of old viruses; and even our cells are dollops of primordial soup. Scientists are increasingly realizing that many diseases are not external assaults, but imbalances of our inner ecosystem. In the case of mitochondria, conflicts can arise because these organelles contain their own unique and separate DNA. “Until recently, science has basically ignored the fact that we are all walking around with two genomes in every cell,” Dowling says, “that of our own nuclear genome, and that of the mitochondria.”

Via Detroit Steve