Comment by blindriver

The idea that mitochondria is somehow external organisms that cells co-opted, and somehow became an integral part of every single organism on Earth is one of the most absurd, science fictional things I've ever seen in my life. And yet people just accept this as almost-fact. It's like believing in magic, there's no real explanation as to how something like this occurred, or even what the basic mechanism is, except for one person's speculation that it happened and the idea has spread virally and now it shows up as a fact in articles like this.