ESSAY: 'The Force' Is Already With All Of Us
By Boyce Rensberger, 08/30/99
Midiclorians, as Jinn explains, are microscopic creatures that long ago took up residence in the bodies of humans and all other creatures. They're symbiotic organisms that live in all our cells.
As it happens, all human cells really do contain symbiotic organisms that took up residence in the dim evolutionary past. This is a story that biologist Lynn Margulis has been explaining for many years. These symbiotic organisms are the size of bacteria, quite a bit smaller than regular cells, and they contain their own DNA. They even reproduce inside our cells, dividing just as bacteria do. Cell biologists know them as mitochondria. The singular is mitochondrion - apparently a recent corruption of the term midiclorian used long, long ago.
Mitochondria are the energy sources of all cells that aren't bacteria to begin with - the cells of animals, plants, fungi and protozoans. They really are an energy source that pervades the living world, supplying the force that makes our bodies function.