From Nathaniel Hellerstein
Your article on using mitochondrial donation to create a “three-parent baby” to avoid inherited disease (21/28 December 2013, p 32) provides a solution to an old literary conundrum. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the titular anti-hero is described as two-thirds divine. How could this be?
The answer, I speculate, is that the goddess Ninsun provided the egg-nucleus and womb; mortal king Lugalbanda the sperm; and a second deity, identity unknown, provided the mitochondria.
San Francisco, California, US
