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For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

Our guest today is Martin Picard, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University.

He's here to tell us all about our mitochondria, what they do for us, and how they can even talk to each other.

If you like to watch your pods instead of just listening, you can check out a video version of my conversation with Martin over on our YouTube page.

Plus, you'll get to see some of the

aligning mitochondria we're about to talk about in action. Martin, would you tell us a little bit

about who you are and where you work? Sure. I work at Columbia University. I'm a professor there,

and I lead a team of mitochondrial psychobiologists. So we try to understand the mind mitochondria

connection, how energy and

those little living creatures that populate ourselves, how they actually feed our lives and allow

us to be and to think and to feel and to experience life.

Well, before we get into the details, you know, most people know mitochondria is the powerhouse

of the cell, which, fun fact,

Scientific American actually coined in the 1950s.

But what are mitochondria to start us off with a really basic question?

Yes, 1957 is the powerhouse of the cell.

...