Comments on: People are colonies http://www.reenigne.org/blog/people-are-colonies/ Stuff I think about Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:39:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Andrew http://www.reenigne.org/blog/people-are-colonies/comment-page-1/#comment-4121 Andrew Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:47:47 +0000 http://www.reenigne.org/blog/?p=1071#comment-4121 Fascinating stuff! Life is so messy - it seems like whenever we try to figure out some kind of rule about it, we find an exception somewhere. Fascinating stuff! Life is so messy - it seems like whenever we try to figure out some kind of rule about it, we find an exception somewhere.

]]> By: Keith Stone http://www.reenigne.org/blog/people-are-colonies/comment-page-1/#comment-4120 Keith Stone Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:14:18 +0000 http://www.reenigne.org/blog/?p=1071#comment-4120 "Even our human cells aren't "pure human" - they contain mitochondria which have their own DNA and almost certainly evolved from a separate line if you go back far enough in history. It's almost like life is fractal (though the self-similarity doesn't descend infinitely)." Not only are our human cell not "pure human" in that they contain mitochondria with it's own separate DNA lineage (which as you point out started as a separate symbiotic organism within early bacteria), we actually have the remnants of viruses which infected the germ cells of our forefathers (and foremothers for that mater). These ancestors were infected with a virus, which also infected their germ cells (sperm and eggs), and though they successfully fought off the invading virus fragments were left in their germ cell's DNA which passed to their offspring. Geneticists can look at modern human nuclear DNA and see fragments of known viruses. This of course happened in other animals (and plants as well) and has undoubtedly played a role in evolution. "Even our human cells aren't "pure human" - they contain mitochondria which have their own DNA and almost certainly evolved from a separate line if you go back far enough in history. It's almost like life is fractal (though the self-similarity doesn't descend infinitely)."

Not only are our human cell not "pure human" in that they contain mitochondria with it's own separate DNA lineage (which as you point out started as a separate symbiotic organism within early bacteria), we actually have the remnants of viruses which infected the germ cells of our forefathers (and foremothers for that mater). These ancestors were infected with a virus, which also infected their germ cells (sperm and eggs), and though they successfully fought off the invading virus fragments were left in their germ cell's DNA which passed to their offspring. Geneticists can look at modern human nuclear DNA and see fragments of known viruses. This of course happened in other animals (and plants as well) and has undoubtedly played a role in evolution.

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