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The title of the book comes from one of the principal achievements of mitochondrial genetics, which is the classification of all modern Europeans into seven groups, the mitochondrial haplogroups. Each haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome, and can be traced along a person's maternal line to a ...
"Mitochondrial Eve" is a science-fiction novelette by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone #92 in February 1995. The novelette was included in the anthology The Best of Interzone in 1997 and in the collection Luminous in 1998.
The geneticist Dan Koboldt observes that while science and technology play major roles in fiction, from fantasy and science fiction to thrillers, the representation of science in both literature and film is often unrealistic. [28] In Koboldt's view, genetics in fiction is frequently oversimplified, and some myths are common and need to be debunked.
The novel's plot supposes that mitochondria, which are inherited through the female line of descent, form the dispersed body of an intelligent conscious life-form, dubbed Eve, which has been waiting throughout history and evolution for the right conditions when mitochondrial life can achieve its true potential and take over from eukaryotic life ...
The Mitochondrial Eve can change, when a mother-daughter line comes to an end. It follows from the definition of Mitochondrial Eve that she had at least two daughters who both have unbroken female lineages that have survived to the present day. In every generation mitochondrial lineages end – when a woman with unique mtDNA dies with no daughters.
The novel grew out of a short story, "Intergalactic P.S. 3", first published as a pamphlet for Children's Book Week in 1970. In this early version of the narrative, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which from A Wrinkle in Time send Charles Wallace, Meg and Calvin to a school on another planet, where Proginoskes and a conifer seed version of Sporos are among their classmates.
Mitochondrial DNA is the small circular chromosome found inside mitochondria. These organelles, found in all eukaryotic cells, are the powerhouse of the cell. [1] The mitochondria, and thus mitochondrial DNA, are passed exclusively from mother to offspring through the egg cell.
the mitochondria within the fertilized oocyte is what the new life will have to begin with (in terms of mtDNA), the number of affected mitochondria varies from cell (in this case, the fertilized oocyte) to cell depending both on the number it inherited from its mother cell and environmental factors which may favor mutant or wildtype ...