Mitochondria By Nick Lane Analysis

With a title such as Power, Sex, Suicide and a subtitle promising to give an answer to the question: ‘what is the meaning of life?’ this book about mitochondria, written by Nick Lane, certainly creates high expectations. At first glance a book regarding mitochondria might seem to be like a textbook, no matter how intriguing its title is. However, Lane circumvents this both by using a writing style that is distinct from anything you might find in a textbook and by touching upon some of the most intriguing topics. Topics such as the origin of life and whether life in outer space might exist are interesting to people across all fields and not exclusively to those interested in biology. Lane goes about answering these questions by focusing on the
He explains that the eukaryotic cell, and thus we ourselves, exist because a cell dependent on hydrogen merged with a mitochondrial ancestor that produced hydrogen and was capable of respiration. This symbiotic relationship, that would give rise to all multicellular life on earth, was the most unlike step in evolution. Much more likely was the actual origin of life, caused by the different concentration of protons across a membrane. This is how our membrane-enclosed mitochondria generate our energy. The internalization of an energy generator is what allowed eukaryotes to distinguish themselves from bacteria, who instead need to use their external membrane to generate energy. Lane believes this merge was extremely important yet so unlikely it happened only once on earth and might never happen again, either here or
Where do we come from? Why do we exist? Are there others like us? Why do we die? Lane does his best to provide us with scientific and satisfying answers to these questions, which he, in my opinion, succeeds in. He also certainly accomplishes his aim of convincing people that mitochondria are a fascinating part of our bodies that is of great importance. However, whether he succeeds in making a case for the fact that understanding mitochondria helps us understand the meaning of life is a different story. For me the meaning of life is something everyone has to decide for themselves. Maybe your life gets meaning by trying to be happy or obtaining as much knowledge as you can. Whereas other people might give their life meaning by making the world a better place or maybe they do not believe life has meaning at all. Either way, Lane does not provide us with an answer to this question, although he certainly answers many others pertaining to the scientific reason for why and how it is we exist at