The Mitochondria-Makes-You-Gay Theory

This thread got me on to thinking about Mitochondria, let me shorten that to Mito's. Heard this theory once, can't find it on the internet though.

Mito's themselves reproduce asexually, clone themselves you might say, and Mito DNA gets huge study these days, often a better marker to follow than other DNA. Sperm do not contain Mito's, so only a daughter can pass on the family Mito's. But a known factor in Biology is that a gene pool, which has no intelligence of course, will still "do" things to propogate itself. For Mito's, that means daughters need to reproduce or it is curtains for passing on DNA. More perversely, it also means that should someone else's daughter not reproduce, then for the gene pool of the population as a whole, the family Mito's are going to be better represented. Thus if it was possible for the Mito's to keep that from happening, biology would find a way. So, as far as a daughter's Mito's are concerned, her brothers represent a problem. It's warfare between asexual and sexual reproduction; the latter will likely develop an anti-incest bias, due to problems this causes with sexual reproduction. Certainly with humans, her brothers are going to be participating in the reproduction of females outside the family. Simply put, then, as far as the Mito's are concerned, if a family's daughters are reproducing while their brothers do not, all the better! So the set of perfect Human DNA from Mito perspective is one that has daughters reproducing and sons not reproducing. Clearly, this can't work absolutely, but the tension between a generally healthy reproduction in a human group, and one that has a bias for helping out Mito DNA, exists in this theory enough that there wind up being more gay men than makes sense from a Human DNA perspective.

Clearly this is controversial. How would the Mito's do it? I thought I would share it though with this group of thinkers.

Quote: odiousgambit

Mito's themselves reproduce asexually, clone themselves you might say,

All cell reproduction is asexual. Mitochondria reproduce themselves the same way cells do.

Quote:

Sperm do not contain Mito's, so only a daughter can pass on the family Mito's.

That's not right. Mitochondria provide energy for the cell to function. Without them the cell doesn't function. Sperm have their share of mitochondria, same as all other cells, except they're located inside the sperm cell's tail. When a sperm fertilizes an ovum, the tail gets left outside. That's why only the mother's mitochondria are passed on to the offspring.


As for the rest, mitochondria do nothing but provide energy for the cells. I forget how, but it involves the ATP (adenosine triphosphate) molecule. So i don't see how they can affect evolution beyond making some people more or less energetic than the norm.

The 'tail' doesn't always get left outside.
The mitochondria are thought to have originally been parasites.
There are so few sequences of mitochondrial dna that I'm not sure we can hypothesize any sort of competition since any one type is so widespread already.

Woa this is weird. I have three sisters and they have 11 children amongst them. I have one brother and we have zero children.

Trivia time: What's the singular for "mitochondria"?

Quote: Nareed

Trivia time: What's the singular for "mitochondria"?

I won't reply since I have been looking up mito stuff. For a hint the subject line here should say "make-you-gay" not "makes-you-gay" but I can't correct it.

I stand corrected on the other, should have written "sperm do not contribute mitos to offspring"

I would say for my own take on this theory, support comes from other cases where gene pools "do" things and you wouldnt think it would work that way. Overall I am on the fence.

Quote: Nareed

Trivia time: What's the singular for "mitochondria"?

Mitochondrion.

More trivia time: what's the singular form of "trivia"? (It's not "trivion" :)

Singular for trivia is trivium.

I like the theory :) So these aliens not only parasite on us, but also conspire against their hosts, and secretely rule the world. This is really cool.
One thing I don't understand is what's up with gay women? :)

Quote: weaselman

One thing I don't understand is what's up with gay women? :)

Well, they're not even single-celled organisms. They're not organisms at all, really, merely organelles. Obviously their mental capacity is non-existent.

So they wind up doing some overkill :P