UniVerses

Mitochondrion

The fuel of life‘s emitted by the sun.
Her photons fire the verdant canopy
whose leaves sustain the animal kingdom
by changing light to heightened valency
which powers the mitochondrion.
A tiny biochemic battery
where macromolecules protean
transform the food we eat to ATP.
This vestige of a microbe parasite
through time‘s become a vital organelle
whose cytochromes respire to nourish life
and wind enzymes who power every cell.
Thus sunlight tuned electronic vibrations
the vital force that fires imagination.

Advanced cells have specialized organelles within, such as mitochondria. Inside the mitochondria are the molecular machines which convert the chemical energy we eat as food into high energy forms that power many of the chemical reactions upon which life depends. Here is a short video that takes you inside the process that produces energy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrS2uROUjK4

We have learned that mitochondria are vestigial remnants of bacteria that once were parasites inside their host cells. They have long since lost the machinery that would enable them to live on their own. Somewhere along time they lost most (but not all) of their original DNA and turned into the batteries that power life.

Life is not an object. It is a force, like gravity and electromagnetism. Life is a property of an assembly of molecules. During the life of a cell, virtually all its components can disassemble and be replaced with new ones. Life transcends its components.

The symphony of all these enzymes consists of chemical reactions, most of which require energy to power. The force that supplies that energy is the Sun. All autonomous living things, whether plants or bacteria or people are enabled by the photons casually cast off by the reactions going on in the Sun.

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