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MON, 28 SEPT · 76 ITEMS
"A hydrogen-producing mitochondrion found in an anaerobic rhizarian eukaryote" — bioRxiv (Genomics) · Science & Medicine
This is a bioRxiv preprint (Genomics) reporting the discovery of a hydrogen-producing mitochondrion — an organelle that makes ATP anaerobically and releases hydrogen gas — in an single-celled from the supergroup . The finding is notable because hydrogen-producing organelles (hydrogenosomes) have not previously been described in Rhizaria, and the paper likely uses genomic/transcriptomic data to characterize the organelle's metabolic pathway. In plain terms, it's evidence that a group of oxygen-free protists has independently evolved or retained a mitochondrial-derived organelle that produces hydrogen.
The claim is the preprint's own central finding; as a primary source it is authoritative about what the authors report, but the work has not yet been peer-reviewed. The bioRxiv subject area (Genomics) suggests the evidence is sequence-based, but the strength of the evidence (e.g., whether the organelle was directly imaged or inferred from gene content) would need to be read in the paper.
Genuinely new preprint; no recirculation year is given, and the bioRxiv identifier points to a 2026 posting.