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Name: Pamela
Status: Educator
Grade:  N/A
Location: FL
Country: United States
Date: January 2005
Question:
My students would like to know why the two new cells are named "daughter cells". Did a scientist give them this name? Was it a random choice? We know that the cells represent a duplication of the DNA in mitosis. They could have been named "son cells" (says one young man).


Replies:
Good question! Never really thought about it. It was probably arbitrary like referring to ships as female. In the case of "son cells", this alliteration sounds kind of funny.

Ron Baker, Ph.D.


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