Is the title here quite right?
It sounds more like mitochondria can specialise their biochemistry depending on the needs of the cell.
The title is wrong, and is not the actual title of the paper. They discovered some new aspects of how regular mitochondria work, not a new kind of mitochondria.
or a new understanding of mitochondrial categories according to specialization of function
...and also the state of their neighbours which makes me start thinking of Conway's Game of Life...
This is quite common in cellular differentiation.
Say a tissue needs a few cells of a certain type, roughly evenly spaced throughout. One strategy to achieve this is for all cells in the region to have a tendancy towards developing those characteristics, but also for the quickest to do so to simultaneously produce a messaging molecule that suppresses that tendency in its near neighbours.
My take: In mitochondria, there is a trade-off between making ATP and making the building blocks of proteins. Different mitochondria can specialize in doing one or the other.
Yep, that was also my takeaway. In addition, the population of mitochondria regulates the proportion of their specializations via fission and fusion among themselves.
I wonder if there are any disorders related to disregulation in the process.
Yes, there are many mitochondrial diseases related to defects in fission and fusion- it seems plausible that something like what you are suggesting is involved.
I call it..the Wolfram Apparatus
I wonder if we could harvest the mitochondria of top athletes and geniuses, breed them and put them in lesser people to make them into better people!
Slow down there Dr. Strangelove
He'd have to do it without telling us to earn the moniker Dr Strangelove wouldn't he?