"The dream of every cell is to become two cells" -- Fran
çois Jacob
A mother yeast cell buds to produce a daughter cell. She's done it before: several bud scars mark her cell wall. The process of cell division -- mitosis -- freezes in time. The nucleus is squeezing through the bud neck as it, too, divides. Mitochondria, cellular energy-producing organelles, shoulder aside the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus, where a secretory vesicle is pinching off. Vacuoles, endosomes, lipid droplets, and the mitochondrial network fill the cell's volume. Inside the nucleus, the crescent nucleolus stretches, and chromosomes pull apart on microtubule tethers, marking the late anaphase stage of division.
As featured by
Scientific American,
BoingBoing, and around the web. Plastic materials only.