Summary Of Power Sex And Suicide

Power, Sex, Suicide is a book written by Nick Lane, a UCL biochemist, that teaches its readers that there is more meaning to the origin of life than just DNA. This book is a summary of the biggest discoveries and debates of the 21st century molecular biology. He is trying to make people understand that mitochondria are much more than just a “powerhouse to the cell”. He brings out how influential mitochondria are on our lives and how little we know about them. In the first section of the book (parts 1-3) we find out that Mitochondria are the reason why we are here, why we are large, complex organisms and why bacteria will never become anything a powerful as we are.

The book starts off with the author’s explanation of the beginning of the eukaryotic cells. He describes how formerly free-living bacteria could have evolved into the vastly stripped-down mitochondria. It is thought that approximately one and a half billion years ago two types of bacteria created a symbiotic union that lead to formation of the eukaryotic cell, through the process of endosymbiosis. He also discusses whether this

The chapter on origin of life was particularly interesting as he explained the debate over how first DNA was made and he also talks about the Miller Urey experiment, which I found fascinating when I studied it in high school, and also about the first cell. In part 3, he answers the questions about why bacteria have not evolved into something more complex and why/how mitochondria are responsible for the complexity of different organisms. Bigger cells can support more genetic material and produce more energy (as respiration requires a membrane, eukaryotic cells have more of it and can therefore produce more ATP), which leads to the possibility of more greater complexity - and in particular to multicellular