My favorite part of the “mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” memes (especially when cited as useless info being taught in school) is that it’s grammatically incorrect. Mitochondria ARE because the word is plural, and any self respecting biology teacher knows that. The fact that this is cited as something drilled into students minds when people can’t even recite it back properly is hilarious.
Because the “the” at the start was dropped
“The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell”
So less “Lion is the king of the jungle” and more “The lion is the king of the jungle”, so I don’t think it is implied to be singular
It’s not a deer/deer single/plural situation with mitochondria, if that is what you are getting at. The word mitochondria is not singular. To replace mitochondria with lion in your analogy doesn’t work because mitochondria is a plural word. Neither “Lions is the king of the jungle” nor “The lions is the king of the jungle” is correct. The singular version of mitochondria is mitochondrion. “The mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell” and “Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell” both work and could be the phrase, just like "The lion is the king of the jungle " and “Lions are the king of the jungle” are both grammatically correct.
