Antoine Boutros - We shall see something like an urgent delivery taking place. As if an urgent message arrives and suddenly all activities in the cell stop as if a  plant closed down and its workers left. Then gradually, a strange thing happens: the cell’s nucleus begins to decay and two other nucleuses appear each having its independent nucleus.

Moreover, if we get the chance to watch a video on the activity of a cell during this same period but filmed in spaced snapshots, with an amplifying measure (a million times or more) and with a timing equal to one second in the video for each minute of the cell’s life, this film would provide an inflated visual of the normal frequency of the event recorded at an accelerated pace. We will then see liquid boiling and full of turbulent bubbles with rectangular objects that looks like peanuts running rapidly as if they were racing cars out of the driver’s control and generate energy.

Then suddenly the nucleus which was lying in an overall serenity curdles into a group of small threads, and then every thread is longitudinally divided into two parts, every one of which is attracted as if by a magical force to one of the two new cells. What is seen is in fact the process of copying the information contained within the cell and its transfer into a new edition of the new cell that was just formed.

Each cell carries the details of the individual’s life and capable of copying its information as it proliferates thus a complete genetic program is transferred from the individual to his/her descendants, preserving therefore the continuity one generation after another.

A cell is best compared with an industrial complex in permanent movement consisting of numerous elements responsible for providing communication, producing energy and construction works.

The nucleus consists of three parts;, first an external protective membrane, second, a center filled with material called cytoplasm which is responsible for providing the cell with the energy and protein necessary for its work . The racing objects we saw through a microscope are located in this part of the cell and called mitochondria; they are in fact the energy plants.  Protein production is related to elements called ribosome also located this part of the cell.  Third, the cell consists of a circular nucleus.

The nucleus itself which plays the role of the cell’s brain, consists of three layers: first, a porous membrane providing communication between them and the surrounding cytoplasm; second, a material called chromatin, meaning the color or the dye. Scientists gave it this name when they noticed that every time they were adding dye to the microscope glass slides to increase the visibility, this material absorbed this color. Third, there is one nucleolus or more.

When the cell is divided, it forms threads called chromosomes and whenever the cell is divided, a new group of chromosomes is formed without increasing in numbers. Thus, the chromosomes are divided longitudinally and not horizontally (mitosis).  However, if we replace a normal cell with a reproductive one, we notice another confusing fact. When the cell is being fertilized and about to be divided and split, the chromatin begins to curdle and the chromosomes to be formed as if the division process is going to take place. At this moment, a strange thing happens. The cells are effectively divided but the chromosomes remain undivided. Instead, each chromosome looks for a partner among the other chromosomes and is divided. In this way, the cell division into two parts is completed and a fixed number of chromosomes remain the same in the new cell despite their unity; thus every cell has its own and complete number of chromosomes (meiosis), thus preserving the laws of nature that the number of chromosomes per cell to remain  stable. As a result of this kind of division, every newborn gets one set of the chromosomes from his/her father and another one from his mother. He/she will then pass half of these chromosomes to his/her descendants.