Mitosis: The Amazing Cell Process that Uses Division to Multiply! (Older Video 2016 )

Have you ever looked down at your leg or your arm to find some cut and you have no idea where it came from or how you got it? So you put a bandage on it and a few days later, it’s gone. It’s all healed, and you don’t even think anything of it of this amazing process

that causes this to happen. Or let’s say you're looking at your nails and you notice they're a lot longer than the last time you cut them. Or let’s say you're looking in the mirror and you notice that you are a lot bigger than you were when you were five years old. What do all of these things have in common?

One major thing they both have in common is mitosis. Mitosis is a type of cell division done by most of your body cells and it’s really important for your cells to divide. If they didn’t divide, you wouldn’t grow. I mean, how do you grow if you can’t make more cells, right? So one reason why you’re bigger than you were

when you were 5 is mitosis. Mitosis also is great for repair of damage. If you have some kind of accident like when we were talking about that cut on your arm or leg, well you want to make sure it can get repaired well so you have to make more cells to do that.

Mitosis is great for that. Now it’s really important to understand what it is not---mitosis is not a process that makes sperm or eggs cells, because that's something different called meiosis, which sounds like mitosis…unfortunately, but it is a different process. Mitosis is done to produce body cells. Mitosis makes identical cells, that is the goal, identical cells. So if you’re

trying to make more skin cells, to replace worn out or damaged skin cells, you don’t want to start suddenly making stomach cells there. That would be ridiculous! You want to make sure you have identical cells replacing what was lost, so mitosis makes identical cells. It’s a really important thing. Now, it’s also important to understand that your cells