A new study shows that plants can inherit mitochondria from their father, restoring fertility when maternal mitochondria are defective, challenging traditional views on mitochondrial inheritance.

Gonzalez-Duran, E., Liang, Z., Forner, J. et al. High-frequency biparental inheritance of plant mitochondria upon chilling stress and loss of a genome-degrading nuclease. Nat. Plants (2026).

Small plastic or metal bits at the end of shoelaces, known as aglets, prevent laces from unraveling and protect them from wear and tear. Similarly, chromosomes are capped by telomeres—specialized ...

In most eukaryotes, the inheritance of mitochondrion and its DNA (mtDNA) is strictly maternal, despite the fact that a spermatozoon can inject up to 100 functional mitochondria into the oocyte during ...