Last week my attention was brought to Endosymbiosis, an accepted theory by Lynn Margulis. I had read about the theory before in previous coursework, but it really got me thinking. Margulis's theory basically describes the origin of mitochondria. How large ancestral bacteria engulfed a smaller prokaryote and they lived in symbiosis. One of the main arguments is that mitochondria and chloroplasts both contain 70s ribosomal units, which are typical in prokaryotes, while eukaryotes have 80s ribosomal units. Additionally mitochondria(and chloroplasts) have similar DNA characteristics such as no introns, its circular, and does not contain histones.
What got my gears going was that it's quite amazing how far science has come, especially in the last 100 years or so. What is obvious is that the more we learn, the faster we are discovering. Yet there are far more discoveries and theories to be postulated. It makes one wonder what the next great step in science is. Especially after the sequencing of the human genome by Craig Venter and company. We'll see what's next...
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