GATTACA- You need to watch it!

Well, while I was sitting thinking about blog posts, I realized that I haven't done a good ol' Glog lately. So... here it is! A Glog on GATTACA! (Take that Sierra!) 

Putting Mitosis and Onion Root Cells Together For a Blog :)

Begining note: My apologies. I thought that this blog post was posted a couple months ago. I guess it wasn't :( So here is a very late post on Mitosis! 

In Biology we have been working on having a better understanding of the cell cycle and mitosis. We examined onion root cells with the microscopes and although I was not able to get pictures of what I saw I did find some on the internet to better show the different phases.

The picture on the right shows two onion cells in the first phase of mitosis- Interphase. The nucleus (C) is filled with chromatin. These chromosomes inside it are stretched out so that they cannot be seen individually. The dark spot that you see in the nucleus (I) is the nucleolus. Most cells in interphase have 1 or more nucleoi.
Prophase is the second step of mitosis that you see in the onion root cell on the left. While prophase i soccuring, the chromosomes coil and become visible as pairs that are withing the nucleus. The chromosomes often form an "X" shape. The cell's centrioles move to opposite sides of the cell. Tiny fibers attach themselves to the centrioles of each chromosome forming the spindle fibers that will pull the chromosomes to opposite sides of the cell. During this phase the nuclear membrane disappears.

Metaphase is the next step. During metaphase the chromosomes form a line in the middle of the cell. Now each chromosome consists of two exact copies (clones) of the cell's original chromosome. All of the  copies, or chromatids, are held all together at the centromere.  Metaphase ends when the centromeres are ready to separate and allow the chromatids to be drawn to opposite ends of the cell. (Picture to the right)

That gets us to Anaphase. During this step in mitosis the pairs of identical chromatids separate at their centromeres and are drawn to the opposite sides of the cell by the spindle fibers. This makes it so that each daughter cell will have a copy of the cell's original chromosomes. (Picture to the left) 



Once anaphase is over Telophase begins.  During telphase the handy little spindle fibers break down. In return, a new nuclear membrane forms around the chromosomes in each half of the cell. (Picture shown on right) 





After the division of the nucleus and in the last part of telophase the cell begins to visibly separate into two new cells. The process of dividing the cell in half is called Cytokinesis.  Cytokinesis actually starts hapening during the process of telophase.(Picture to the left) 

DNA Extraction!

Below is a overview that me and Sierra Frentress made about our DNA Extraction Lab! :)