Cell division

Have you ever skinned your knee? Stings, right? But check it out.

Any time you get a cut or a scrape like that, boom, a flurry of cell division kicks off and new skin cells are created to patch it up.

Cellular division is a cell's way of making more cells.

In a single-celled organism, like an amoeba, that results in a whole new organism.

But once you're an adult, many cells in your nerves and muscles won't divide at all.

The muscle cells will grow bigger if I don't skip leg day, but at a certain point in our lives, we typically won't be getting new ones.

Many biologists have been investigating this limitation, researching whether it might be possible to stimulate cell division and replace nerve or muscle cells that have been damaged.

We haven't quite figured out the secret yet, but hey, maybe that can be your project.