[ExI] roaches again

[Damien Broderick]

On 11/2/2009 11:07 PM, spike wrote:

> Mitochondria have their own DNA.  This has led me to speculate that way
> back in the old days when life was all single cell, the mitochondria
> were a separate species that infiltrated some larger cells.  ...   I need to
> study up on this; it might already be well understood.

A clever insight, and congratilations! But no cigar: see Lynn Margulis 
(of whom Carl Sagan was once the spouse), circa 40 years ago. Wiki:

<In 1966, as a young faculty member at Boston University, she wrote a 
theoretical paper entitled The Origin of Mitosing Eukaryotic Cells.[2] 
The paper however was "rejected by about fifteen scientific journals," 
Margulis recalled.[3] It was finally accepted by The Journal of 
Theoretical Biology and is considered today a landmark in modern 
endosymbiotic theory. Although it draws heavily on symbiosis ideas first 
put forward by mid-19th century scientists and by Merezhkovsky (1905) 
and Wallin (1920) in the early-20th century, Margulis's endosymbiotic 
theory formulation is the first to rely on direct microbiological 
observations (as opposed to paleontological or zoological observations 
which were previously the norm for new works in evolutionary biology).>

Damien Broderick