 Yeah, everybody, Dr. O. In this video, we're going to cover binary fission. So let's start with terminology. So binary means to repair. Fission is splitting apart. So this is the process that bacteria, most bacteria use to split into two. So where one cell becomes two. So this would be an analogous to mitosis in our cells. Now, why don't we call it mitosis? To me, that's kind of the most important thing here. We misuse the word mitosis a lot. We talk about mitosis. We talk about the division of body cells and that's fine. But the actual word mitosis means division of the nucleus. Prokaryotes like these bacteria here don't have a nucleus. So it's basically mitosis, but we can't use the term mitosis. So I will show you some similarities here as we go on. And I'll also show you how cell division of bacteria would be more similar to cell division in plants than in us. So first, what we're seeing here is DNA replication on the left side of this image. That's absolutely true. This would be the equivalent of interphase in your cells. But not only is DNA replicating, the cell is dividing its contents and duplicating its contents so that it can become two cells. So we always think of interphase as the doubling of your DNA. But in this bacteria, the cell contents like ribosomes are also having to double or else you'd have two new cells with half as much cell content and that doesn't work. So yes, the main thing is DNA replication. Another cool thing about DNA replication with bacteria is all bacteria have one chromosome and it's a circle. So we have what's called the origin of replication. Where DNA replication begins and it actually travels in both directions. So you can copy this one circular chromosome in half the time because you're copying it in both directions and it meets on the other side, right? If you think about a clock, the origin of replication begins at 12 and goes both directions to six rather than having to go all the way back around the clock. So all right, that's what happens at the beginning. So the DNA is being replicated, being doubled, being copied. So what are the structures inside the cell? The cell is also elongating. So it's still a single cell, but it's getting bigger. That way it can pop into two, you know, relatively normal sized cells. All right, and then once that process is done, the cell is now doubled. It's DNA, it's ready to pull its DNA into two piles, divvy up its cell components into two piles, and then actually split into a cell, which you see here with the septum forming. And then you see the actual separation or division of the cell. That would be called cytokinesis in bacteria and in our human cells. Here I grabbed an image of a plant cell dividing to show you some of the comparisons here. So obviously the plant cell has multiple chromosomes. The bacterial cell only has one, but still you get the point. The DNA is being pulled into two areas, so are the rest of the cell structures. In bacteria, you have a septum forming. It's called a cell plate in plants, but it still is their cell wall. And then once that new cell wall's been built and all the cellular components have been divvied up, the cell's going to split into, which would be that cytokinesis process. All right, so that is binary fission, how most bacteria divide and go from being one cell to two cell. I hope that helps, have a wonderful day, be blessed.