Blog for 1/19/10

This week, I learned a lot about mitosis and the different steps of it. A step before mitosis even begins is interphase. This phase is when the cell is normal and the DNA is still spread out. When did an activity online with the whole class, we summarized that in a whole cell, most of the cells are in the process of interphase. As an experiment, we looked at onion ring cells which had been preserved to look just as they had when they were alive. When we looked at these cells under a microscope in high power, you could see the DNA, and tell which phase it was probably in. The ones with only 1 small dot meant that the cell was in the phase of interphase. The ones with many small squiggles and looked as though they didn't want to be separated were in the phase of metaphase. We also learned about the differences between chromatids, chromosomes, and chromatin. Chromatid is the unraveled DNA. A chromosome is a single strand of a chromatin. A chromatin is in the shape of an X and is connected with a small thing called a kineticore.