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Agriculture · Q272

Genetics And Plant Breeding

Graduate and Post Graduate · Agriculture · question 272

Q272

How many mitotic divisions will take place to produce 512 cells from a single parent cell

A.
9
Answer
B.
511
C.
158
D.
411

Answer: Option A

Solution

Answer: Option A
Solution:
The correct answer is Option A: 9

Here's why:

Mitosis is a type of cell division where one cell divides into two identical cells.

Think of it like this:
* 1 cell -> 2 cells (1 division)
* 2 cells -> 4 cells (2 divisions)
* 4 cells -> 8 cells (3 divisions)
And so on...

Each division doubles the number of cells. So, to find the number of divisions needed to get 512 cells from a single cell, we need to figure out how many times we need to multiply by 2 to reach 512.

You can do this by repeatedly dividing 512 by 2:
512 / 2 = 256
256 / 2 = 128
128 / 2 = 64
64 / 2 = 32
32 / 2 = 16
16 / 2 = 8
8 / 2 = 4
4 / 2 = 2
2 / 2 = 1

We divided 9 times!

Another way to think about it is that 2 raised to the power of the number of divisions equals the final number of cells. So, 29 = 512

Therefore, it takes 9 mitotic divisions to produce 512 cells from one parent cell.