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the mitochondria is the energy center of the cell
P O W E R H O U S E
She’s mighty-mighty, just lettin’ it all hang out
T H R I L L H O
M I L P O O L
Inertia is a property of matter
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins
It’s mental how this is pretty much known worldwide, like drawing that S thing. The one similar to the Suzuki logo
The S was known worldwide pre internet though. Was the powerhouse line?
They are both universal knowledge passed down through generations
…maternally via mitochondrial DNA
we are the self-preservation society.
The exact origin of the symbol (cool S) is unclear; however, it is generally considered to be an artifact of childlore, meaning that it is taught by children to children over the course of generations.
TIL
Cool S wiki
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 think it comes from an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and exploded as a meme.
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Lol that’s like saying a joke originated on the Family Guy
the meme originated from tumblr. the quote itself is older than color tv.
Well ‘meme’ is an older idea than image macros =p
It’s not from any specific media reference, it’s just essentially what every child was taught, verbatim, in grade school.
Apparently as an Internet thing it only really took off in 2013 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mitochondria-is-the-powerhouse-of-the-cell
Huh, I figured it was Dexter’s Lab or some cartoon.
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 took biology in 1996; it wasn’t a thing yet. Someone else claimed it was already widespread by 2001. I don’t think I encountered it in the wild before 2005, but it could have been much later than that.
KnowYourMeme suggests the phrase originated in a textbook from 1957, but it didn’t reach memehood until 2014.
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.
6th grade biology class in the United States, 2001 AD.
The teacher slaps up a diagram of a cell and organelles.
30-45 children all looking around the room, not exactly paying attention
She points to the various organelles, trying to explain their purpose, the golgi complex, ribosomes…
“And the mitochondria”
“Is the power house of the cell”
Children cheer in applause and repeat it, because it rhymes.
It then enters the collective unconscious of English speakers.
I was in the room where it happened.
“And the mitochondria”
“Is the power house of the cell”
Children cheer in applause and repeat it, because it rhymes.
Where the hell is the rhyme in this?
We actually had the same sentence as the headline for the chapter about mitochondria in our class in the late 90s, just translated. “Mitochondrien - das Kraftwerk der Zelle”
Mitosis is….
Damn, I haven’t thought about that 90’s Sabrina show since, well… the 90’s!
Same here in Germany - immediately came to my mind!
Can we take a step back and just appreciate how good Bluey is?
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Challenging but accessible
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Inclusive
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Emotional depth
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Grounded
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Not disgusting annoying
I really appreciate when kids shows are made with parents/guardians in mind (ie will watching the same episode 50 times make you want to off yourself or not)
Such a great show. That Sleepytime episode always ruins me though. About how kids need their parents less and less as time goes on and they become more independent, fuuuuck.
It’s really amazing. The only (not really) downside is that certain episodes make me tear up.
I haven’t actually been able to watch the special episode properly because my wife and daughters are too busy crying. I do love how stripe is kicked out of the bushes by Wendy
You will also have to enslessly play the games they’re playing.
Take another moment to realize how shit Paw Patrol is.
- Not challenging, has clear cut good/bad dynamic. Bluey doesn’t have “bad guys”
- PP is fairly inclusive.
- Almost not emotional depth, everyone is always in a good mood.
- Started off fairly grounded, but then power scaling for no reason.
- Repetitive and boring.
- What the fuck is up with dogs being intelligent enough to do the PP things, but also being subservient to humans? The whole dynamic is so fucked, Bluey doesn’t have humans at all.
I only compare them because the are both dog based kids shows. But PP sucks
I almost added “Not ADHD bait” as a positive for Bluey and calling out Paw Patrol specifically but wanted to be more positive lmao
Truely a turd of a show.
It is really nice to have a children’s TV show that doesn’t scream the title and characters’ names at us over and over, mainly to make sure we remember to buy merchandise
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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 constantly struggle with what’s proper and what sounds right when using Latin plural in English.
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)
Why have you done this to us?!
A grammatical error in a translation from a foreign galactic basic to English is what ruined the force for you? Lol. If we can believe in defying gravity, I think we can believe “The iceburgs is the ship’s fear.”
Bro. What lol.
Idk, just a dumb joke about star wars
I was with you until the last line, lol, had me scratching my head and wondering if I was okay
Weakness would have made more sense then fear, but that ship already sailed. If it’s going to Titanic I’m going to pretend I can’t change course now
I’m a big fan of saying weird shit and leaving it up, cheers fellow weirdo.
I refer to one piece of broccoli as a
broccolusbroccolo.Except its Italian, not Latin, so the singular is broccolo . If you want to use the Latin word,.it’s broccus
I feel like Broccus would be a badass name for a dog.
I have one die which gives one datum at a time.
The oft repeated line is grammatically incorrect.
thankfully grammar isnt science
No, but in other examples, incorrect grammar can make a statement scientifically incorrect.
this is why science is written with lots of care and they use Latin words and phrases that cannot be misunderstood
What’s with americans and mitochondria ?
Our politicians of a Sithian persuasion want to use Force Lightning on their enemies and subjects. Sadly(?), mitochondria are not quite the same as midi-chlorians.
Grew up in Asia. Only moved to the US for undergrad… And this applies. So it’s not just the Americans methinks.
That’s interesting
We don’t have that where I live, sure we had to learn the organelles of a cell, but there was no über-focusing on the mitochondria.
(Btw I didn’t know about “methinks”. Learned a new word, thanks !)
Methinks you have to use the phrase, “methinks” more often!
It’s been so ubiquitous for so long that I honestly don’t know where it came from. But most of the time when I hear “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” it’s being used to take a jab at how impractical our education system is, as though to say, “instead of teaching me about X, they taught me about the mitochondria”
Mitochondria are cool and important.
But I’d like to have learned actual practical information as well. Not once has mitochondria come up other than as a meme, but knowing how local and national government works might have been more useful. If it wasn’t on the state standardized test, it wasn’t taught at my schools.
Understanding the building blocks of life is very important. This is the foundation of how your body processes energy. If you want to lose weight, for example, you should understand respiration.
Reread my comment, I ALSO wanted to learn info more useful to every day life. I never said instead of.
Compound interest.
Finances are taught poorly everywhere tbf. I was lucky with my precalculus teacher being a huge finance nerd, she spent at least 3 separate full class sessions going over credit cards and loans completely unrelated to our content at the time
The phrase “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” was coined in a 1957 article by biologist Philip Siekevitz. It apparently rattled around in the English lexicon until 2013, when a tumblr user by the handle apatheticghost posted the following:
what I learned in school
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I am a fucking piece of shit
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everybody else is also a piece of shit
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mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
This blew up in popularity and variations emerged that replaced the first two items with various social commentary, but always kept the mitochondria line. It stood for a kind of universal frustration students have with school, that a lot of the curriculum feels like memorizing game show trivia answers rather than useful or practical skills applicable to adult life. Loads of us have no idea how the tax system works but we can all parrot biology factoids.
The phrase became one of those catchphrase in-jokes. A bit like how you can’t say 69 without saying “nice” anymore.
My on personal Mandela Effect: I’d swear I’m from the parallel universe where the phrase comes from the Bill Nye The Science Guy theme song, but apparently I’m thinking of “Inertia is a property of matter.”
Thanks for the detailed answer !
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it’s at this point a joke seen in non science contexts
Its so ubiquitous that LLMs will always say it like that when it comes up.
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”.
Power plant🌱
Yes, that’s the word that everyone uses for the large generating stations that create power on a large scale like a manufacturing plant creates goods on a large scale.
Its rare for us to have “power houses” now, and when we do no one calls them that.
Mitochondria is the solar farm of the cell.
The power generating stations near me are still called Power houses.
