It was ruined for me when I was getting my masters in genetics and learned that "mitochondria" is plural, and the singular is "mitochondrion." So, it's either "the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell" or "the mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell," and neither feel right.
I feel like the leading "the" is what's messing that up.
"Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell" sounds fine to me.
*powerhouses might be better(it sounds better for me)
I constantly struggle with what's proper and what sounds right when using Latin plural in English.
It's mental how this is pretty much known worldwide, like drawing that S thing. The one similar to the Suzuki logo
As a non-native English speaker, I still have no idea why this specific phrase is so significant and at this point I'm afraid to ask.
I was born in the 1970's and it is lost on me too, I think its something that became a thing to the generation after me
I think it's just the most simplified you can get talking about cellular biology, specifically when teaching organelles. So most primary science textbooks use that terminology and it's more memorable than all the other organelles so it just stuck and it got repeated and reviewed every year and it sorta became a pre Internet meme and part of a shared consciousness if you were schooled in the US.
The S was known worldwide pre internet though. Was the powerhouse line?
What's interesting to me about that phrase is that no one uses the word "powerhouse" for anything else any more, except maybe to call something powerful.
Since it's not the 1920s any more and we have an electrical grid and centralized power generation. We still sometimes do use temporary off-grid generators, but we no longer have any need for a dedicated word that means "building or shed that we keep our generators in".
The power generating stations near me are still called Power houses.
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins
Mitosis is….
Damn, I haven't thought about that 90's Sabrina show since, well.. the 90's!
Inertia is a property of matter
Why does everyone know this, but still think the definition of "metabolism" is solely built towards fake weight loss regiments? Bit of a tangent.
Same here in Germany - immediately came to my mind!
Its so ubiquitous that LLMs will always say it like that when it comes up.
the mitochondria is the energy center of the cell
it's at this point a joke seen in non science contexts
