Year: 2022

WITHOUT MITOCHONDRIA AND CHLOROPLASTS, there would be no cellular energy, or ATP, and no life. In both cases, this energy is generated by harvesting high energy electrons in an electron chain reaction, from either sunlight in photosynthesis, or from sugars in respiration. https://lnkd.in/eFABf-W View in LinkedIn

ATP CRITICAL TO LIFE. Trefoil (1992): "Hooking and unhooking that last phosphate (on ATP) is what keeps the whole world operating" and occurs about three times a minute in the billion ATP molecule per cell. Thanks to the ancient symbiotic bacteria in living cells. http://www.trueorigin.org/atp.php View in LinkedIn

ELECTRON FLOW AT HEART OF POWERHOUSES of life, just like in electrical devices. Mitochondrial operations have a lot in common with electrical devices, as they are 'quantized heat pumps' that also control electron spin and free radicals, forming magnetic memory like hard drives. This makes them harnessable like devices. Read this interesting perspective. https://lnkd.in/eqUST_2 View in LinkedIn

BACTERIA DRIVING SPECIES FORMATION? "Gut microbes in fruit flies can rapidly change the insects’ mating behaviors, often a precursor to the development of new species. In hyenas, bacteria synthesize many of the chemical compounds animals use to communicate, and changes to the microbes might have helped to push populations apart." Microbes directing species formation. https://lnkd.in/e8ug98X View in LinkedIn

NEW THINKING ON SYMBIOSIS. "In 2001, a study of Nasonia wasps conducted ... suggested that microbes influence the evolution of their hosts more often than scientists had expected." Symbiotic microbes direct wasp species formation. https://lnkd.in/e8ug98X View in LinkedIn

MICROBIAL ENGINES. "Virtually all nonequilibrium electron transfers on Earth are driven by a set of nanobiological machines composed largely of multimeric protein complexes associated with a small number of prosthetic groups. These machines evolved exclusively in microbes early in our planet's history yet, despite their antiquity, are highly conserved." Interesting high level view. https://lnkd.in/eajxV_c View in LinkedIn

GLOBAL NUTRIENT CYCLES of enormous magnitude are driven by microbes, and remain at equilibrium. Microbes contain hundreds of giga-tons of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and fix 85% of the global nitrogen annually, and 50% of global oxygen. Stewards of planet earth. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3954078/ View in LinkedIn

HARNESS THE BUGS. "Microbes mediate all the important element cycles on earth...they form clouds, break down rocks, deposit minerals, fertilize plants, condition soils and clean up toxic wastes." Is it not time to hook these super-capable creatures up to some of our advanced programmable materials and artificial intelligence, and see what happens? https://lnkd.in/eYfQSpk View in LinkedIn

What would the swarm intelligence of microbes be interested to Google, given the chance? View in LinkedIn

"BACTERIA, long perceived as simple creatures, are now recognized as smart beasts that can conduct intricate social life while using sophisticated social language, one that we have only recently begun to decode." Good article. https://lnkd.in/eFQS2HD View in LinkedIn