As viewed from a human perspective, nature has done some ingenious engineering to overcome some of the obstacles it has faced. Take the evolution of sex, for instance. To make the move from asexual to ...

The five phases of mitosis and cell division tightly coordinate the movements of hundreds of proteins. How did early biologists unravel this complex dance of chromosomes? The most obvious difference ...

The completion of mitosis is governed by the dephosphorylation of cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) substrates and by the ubiquitination of anaphase-promoting complex (APC) substrates. The order in which ...

The primary mechanism by which organisms generate new cells is through cell division. During this process, a single "parent" cell will divide and produce identical "daughter" cells. In this way, the ...

In the process of replicating themselves, cells have another choice: do they want to make an identical copy and be left with two cells? Or do they want to make four “half-copies”, in preparation for ...

Most of the time, when a cell in our bodies divides, each new cell carries a complete set of chromosomes. The cells involved with human reproduction, however, carry only half after division occurs. In ...

Mitosis and meiosis are both processes by which cells reproduce, but there are distinct differences between the two. While new cells are generated during mitosis, meiosis is a special type of cell ...

During cell division, adherent animal cells round up to create the precise spatial geometry required for accurate chromosome ...

For a new plant to grow from a seed, cells need to divide numerous times. Daughter cells can each take on different tasks and sometimes vary in size. How plants determine the plane of cell division in ...

The first mitosis in spores of the fern A. capillus-veneris was observed under a microscope equipped with Nomarski optics with irradiation from a safelight at 900 nm, and under a fluorescent ...

In the process of replicating themselves, cells have another choice: do they want to make an identical copy and be left with two cells? Or do they want to make four “half-copies”, in preparation for ...