Power, Sex, Suicide

Nick Lane’s 2005 book arguing that mitochondria — the organelles that generate cellular energy, and that began as free-living bacteria swallowed by another cell around two billion years ago — explain a surprising amount of biology downstream. Lane’s case is that this single merger is what made complex life energetically possible at all, and that the terms of the bargain still govern us: why there are two sexes, why mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother, why cells commit programmed suicide, why we age, and why warm-blooded animals exist. The three words of the title are the three consequences he traces back to the same origin event.

Why it’s on the list: Assigned in the University of Austin’s Foundations of Science II course. It is the syllabus’s argument that biology has deep structure rather than a list of mechanisms — one endosymbiotic event, followed through to sex, ageing and death — which is the kind of reasoning a science core is trying to teach.

Where I saw it: On the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list, “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, November 13 2025, saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 65-text curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this is assigned in.
• The Vaccine — the other Foundations of Science II text in this shard.
• Evolution — the endosymbiosis argument is an evolutionary one.
• Energy — mitochondria are where the energy budget of complex life is set.