Trying to hit a target size before dividing seems like the best strategy for maintaining a precise cell size, but bacteria don't do that. Now we know why. When a single bacterial cell divides into two ...

If you took high school biology, you probably learned about cell division: a crucial process in all life forms officially called mitosis. For over one hundred years, students have learned that during ...

When we talk about memories in biology, we tend to focus on the brain and the storage of information in neurons. But there are lots of other memories that persist within our cells. Cells remember ...

Researchers have revealed how bacteria precisely control the genes that trigger cell division. The study shows that the MraZ protein, which normally forms a donut-shaped structure, must bend and ...

The story of the cell cycle is often told only through the perspective of the chromosomes as they replicate and then divide. This resource beautifully illustrates the role of the cytoskeleton in that ...

Among the many marvels of life is the cell's ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA—its genome—and segregate it equally ...

When a cell divides, it performs a feat of microscopic choreography—duplicating its DNA and depositing it into two new cells. The spindle is the machinery behind that process: It latches onto ...

David Pellman (left) is a professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School (both MA, USA), who also has affiliations with Howard Hughes Medical Institute (MD, USA) and the ...

Every day, our bodies perform around 330 billion cell divisions to keep us alive and functioning. These divisions rely on the cell cycle, which has been in place since the earliest bacteria. The ...

Ichthyosporeans Sphaeroforma arctica and Chromosphaera perkinsii undergoing mitosis, depicted as two halves of a cell, rendered in Haeckel-inspired tones and a naturalist style. Cell division is one ...