Biology Wisdom

I don’t follow the news much, but I do indulge in reading articles and papers about ongoing scientific research and the strange new discoveries in the natural sciences. It’s my own guilty pleasure. I love exploring what we’re now able to understand, how we explain it to others, and the meanings or logic we attach to it. How our discoveries (or inventions) fit into our existing worldviews, beliefs, and socially accepted constructs.

I love doing this because it brings me joy and fun. I rarely talk about it, but I dive into it often.

Today, I came across an article that inspired me to write this. (Though I’m not sure yet where this writing will take me!) Let’s discover it together.

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The article’s original title was "Why We Only Inherit Mitochondria from Moms," and it’s based on a research paper with a slightly more complex title: “Moderate Embryonic Delay of Paternal Mitochondrial Elimination Impairs Mating and Cognition and Alters Behaviors of Adult Animals,” by Ding Xue et al., published in Science Advances.

This is deeply fascinating, mind-blowing biology.

I love using the simplicity of cells in living organisms and the key principles of biological processes to talk about systems in general. It’s easy, clear, and super effective to use the ‘science’ of how our bodies work to understand deeper truths about reality and our collective consciousness.

Biology feels like physics intertwined with sophisticated chemistry. It’s both simple and incredibly complex. It’s logical, yet sometimes counterintuitive. Biology is wild.

I often view the human body as a super-complex, highly sophisticated, mostly unpredictable, and “almost” self-sufficient machine. When I observe my own body, I see motors, generators, transmitters of energy, and a wide network of communication and transformation of electrochemical signals between the body’s subsystems. It’s a whole, where each part makes sense only when they work in coherence toward the same goal.

Each cell, in itself, is relatively simple and easy to grasp. Yet, when cells collaborate, they can create astonishingly complex structures, like the human body, that we may never fully understand.

Isn’t that fascinating?

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A cell is a beautifully interconnected system composed of several key parts, each contributing to the cell’s overall energy, power, and function. These elements ensure the co-creation of something coherent, efficient, and meaningful as a whole system—whether that’s a human or an animal.

Here are the main 7 parts of a typical living cell:

1. Nucleus → Power Center of Information & Control

2. Mitochondria → Energy Generator

3. Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) → Factory & Transport Network

4. Golgi Apparatus → Energy Packager & Distributor

5. Lysosomes → Waste Processors & Recyclers

6. Cell Membrane → Gatekeeper & Communication Hub

7. Cytoplasm → Support Matrix & Transport Medium

Let’s break it down:

Each component plays a vital role, ensuring the flow of energy, resources, and information to create a beautifully interconnected whole.

To improve health, you can target different scales or levels of the body. You can work on the organs or tissues, or you can optimize cellular health directly to ensure proper body function as a whole. Different approaches aren’t better or worse—it depends on what you want to achieve and what genuinely interests you.

I love talking about cells and biology because it speaks to me from an engineering perspective. It’s also a great system to use as an analogy for more complex macro-systems. Once you truly understand how a single cell works, what it needs to stay in optimal health, and why it operates the way it does, you can transform nearly anything.

Your body. Your organization. The world.

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Now, back to the article and the intriguing mysteries of mitochondria, one of the key players in almost every cell of the human body.

Mitochondria are often called the “powerhouses” of the cell.

Their primary role is to generate energy by converting nutrients like glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which powers almost all activities in the cell. Think of them as tiny power plants, using fuel and oxygen to produce energy that keeps the cell running.

Beyond just energy production, mitochondria also help regulate cell growth, manage waste, and even contribute to decisions about cell survival. Their efficiency and constant energy output are critical for the cell’s vitality and function.

Mitochondria are basically like your personal Hydro-Québec and unlimited gas station rolled into one.

If you’re seeking systemic health or access to boundless energy, it’s worth getting curious about how mitochondria work and why improving their performance is key.

Until now, nothing about this is especially new or ground-breaking—we’ve known this for a while.

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Now, let's get to the interesting and crunchy part.

Mitochondria have their own DNA, which, for animals and humans, typically comes only from the mother. This simple fact intrigues my wild brain. It's fascinating to internalize this knowledge within my mental and emotional system.

Are you telling me that the parts of me responsible for producing and transforming energy have absolutely nothing to do with my father? The "powerhouse" of my body is influenced solely by the genes from my maternal genetic line?

Apparently, during conception, the evolutionary choice that ensured the best chance of survival involved the self-destruction of the sperm’s mitochondria, leaving only the mother’s to guide the development of the fetus.

I am speechless.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is almost exclusively inherited from the mother, a well-established principle in biology. During fertilization, the sperm contributes nuclear DNA, but its mitochondria are typically eliminated. This maternal inheritance is crucial for normal development.

If the paternal mitochondria somehow escape this elimination and enter the developing embryo, it can lead to various issues. These include neurological, behavioral, and reproductive problems later in life, as the mixing of maternal and paternal mtDNA can disrupt cellular energy production. This process of eliminating paternal mitochondria is highly regulated, and when it fails, the consequences underscore the importance of mitochondrial integrity for overall cellular health and function.

This phenomenon has fascinated scientists and prompted deeper research into mitochondrial diseases and inheritance patterns. The article I read this morning delved further into understanding how paternal mitochondria are wiped out — via a multi-faceted self-destruct mechanism known as "paternal mitochondria elimination" (PME).

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Now that we’re on the same page about these basic concepts, what exactly fascinates me so much about it right now? Why am I spending time thinking and writing about it? What makes it so interesting or mind-blowing?

To see the fun behind it, try to observe this from the perspective of a systemic engineer (or a mystic). What does this knowledge tell us about other systems? How does understanding this impact consciousness? What mental frameworks or emotions are triggered within our personal systems when we process this biological wisdom from our own evolution?

How can we use this information to better understand the mysteries of co-creation in other living and non-living systems and sub-systems?

How can biology inspire us to build more coherent, efficient, and high-performing social, business, political, and other macro systems in our shared reality?

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Let’s go back to the seven parts of the cell, now with their "systemic thinking" names for further exploration. The main "actors" and "players" that create a super-efficient cell are:

1. Power Center of Information & Control

2. Energy Generator

3. Factory & Transport Network

4. Energy Packager & Distributor

5. Waste Processors & Recyclers

6. Gatekeeper & Communication Hub

7. Support Matrix & Transport Medium

I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet, but this is essentially the model of the supply chain for virtually everything we produce and create in the world. When someone asks you about the "supply chain" of your product, service, or initiative, this is basically what they’re asking for.

They might use different names and cluster the data differently, but in essence, the overall scheme remains the same.

Life Cycle Analysis and other technological, environmental, social, and economic evaluations rely on a similar framework. It’s almost the same "supply chain" methodology, reflecting the same systemic mechanics and dynamics we observe in biology — even in something as small and simple as a single cell in the human body.

The cycles and patterns are nearly identical.

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So, if mitochondria are the equivalent of the "energy generator" in larger systems, what does that mean, and why is it important or relevant now?

How can we use the wisdom of biology and its advancements to regenerate non-living, technology-driven (or politically-driven) systems in our shared reality?

How can we optimize global industrial supply chains and macro-level transactions using the highly efficient, resilient, and mind-blowing "science" of co-creation found within our own bodies?

For some mysterious reason, nature has decided that the "energy generator" component of the cell, when designed by paternal genetic material, is inefficient and unsuitable for future survival, evolution, and reproduction of our species.

This is simply a biological fact.

Paternal DNA is still present in every cell and deep within the nucleus, influencing every other process. However, ensuring that the "energy generator" remains free from paternal genetic influence seemed crucial to nature for our continued evolution and survival.

Why is it like that?

Why would the paternal "energy generator" self-destruct during the very first moment of conception? Why could it risk compromising the future health and well-being of the fetus if this evolutionary mechanism of self-destruction doesn’t function properly?

Why is it better for the baby to have only the mother’s DNA in its biological "energy generators"?

I won’t answer those questions here, but I do want to point out that meditating a bit deeper on them offers a fascinating exploration — a very tasty treat for the mind and soul.

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Let’s return to the macro system.

(I'm going to skip a few steps of the thought process here, mostly because I'm getting a bit tired of writing and want to focus on other things, but I still want to finish this contemplation. Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like me to dive into deeper in future reflections.)

What is the "Energy Generator" of our macro system? If we imagine the entire global economy as having a "supply chain" similar to a cell, then what or who is responsible for the energy generation that powers all processes within the system? Who plays the role of the mitochondria in our collective system? And how efficiently are they performing today?

If we treat the system like a coherent whole made up of multiple interdependent parts—like a cell—how does the current energy generation strategy impact other parts of the shared system, and their authentic roles or functions?

Is the entire supply chain of the macro system truly optimized today? Is the way we generate and use both personal and collective energy more aligned with the "maternal" or the "paternal" way of doing things?

If a mother were responsible for efficient energy generation and utilization in her fetus, how would she approach it? How does she ensure systemic coherence for the whole, both sustaining her own energetic needs and creating another fully functional, complex, and eventually "independent" life inside her body?

Isn't that pure magic? It’s the most high-performing energy generation and distribution strategy we know, and it happens every day. From the perspective of physics and thermodynamics, this process of energy generation and power exchange is both mind-blowing and fascinating on many levels.

A mother knows how to manage, generate, and use available energy efficiently within highly complex systems. She may not be conscious of it, but her body is programmed to handle it perfectly, regardless. She simply feels it, and her system responds.

She is the real "energy wizard" and always has been. If we want to optimize the way we generate energy or build sophisticated supply chains for its distribution, perhaps we should listen to her more often.

Energy isn’t just about quantity; it’s about quality. Both are important, but for evolution to progress, energetic quality seems to hold more weight than sheer quantity. So, what if we designed our macro systems based on these same principles? Could we move closer to the biological wisdom that Nature is subtly and playfully offering us?

The most efficient mitochondria isn't the one that produces the most or the "greenest" energy, but the one that knows how to generate and use high-quality energy more wisely and efficiently.

It’s not just about the "energy generator." It’s about the systemic well-being of the entire cell or body. It’s not about the performance of individual, separate parts; it’s about the coherence of the whole.

It’s not about the One.

It’s about the Many.