28 Quotes by Nick Lane

Sex is far more widespread than seems reasonable.

It seems that all eukaryotic cells either have, or once had (and then lost) mitochondria. In other words, possession of mitochondria is a sine qua non of the eukaryotic condition

The myosin in our own skeletal muscles is more closely related to the myosin driving the flight muscles of that irritating housefly buzzing around your head than it is to the myosin in the muscles of your own sphincters

Nothing is more conservative than a bacterium.

Our terminal decline into old age and death stems from the fine print of the contract that we signed with our mitochondria two billion years ago.

Mitochondrial genes act like a female surname, which enables us to trace our ancestry down the female line in the way some families try to trace their descent down the male line from William the Conqueror, or Noah, or Mohammed.

Occam’s razor, the philosophical basis of all science: assume the simplest natural cause. That answer might turn out not to be correct, but we should not resort to more complex reasoning unless it is shown to be necessary.

Your 40 trillion cells contain at least a quadrillion mitochondria, with a combined convoluted surface area of about 14,000 square metres; about four football fields.

Without programmed cell death, the bonds that bind cells in complex multicellular organisms might never have evolved.