The Cell Cycle - Unit 3 Lesson 15
Why should we care about how and why cells divide? Well, when your car breaks down, or your computer is on the fritz, or your furnace isn’t turning on - it’s helpful to know how these things work if you are going to fix them.
Like a car or a furnace, cells can stop working correctly as well. And when cells aren’t dividing when they are supposed to, this can lead to one of the most difficult and awful diseases - cancer.
The Amoeba Sisters can tell us more about the steps that cells need to go through before they divide. As you watch, think about these question and your response to your notes:
What are the risk factors that can cause healthy cells to become cancer cells?
What are some specific examples of problems that can happen during interphase? And how could these problems lead to uncontrolled cell growth?
Gifs are great study tools. Here is another one - this time showing the steps of the cell cycle. Keep in mind that the “M” in the pie chart in the bottom right refers to mitosis (what we learned about in the previous lesson). The rest (G1, S, G2) is interphase which is the majority of the cell cycle.
Why does the cell say “I don’t even USE all this DNA”? That’s something to ponder! And something that we will discuss in lesson 17!