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Biology question about cell cycle

I don’t understand why does (6/200) *(60*16) answers this question.

“The student counted the number of cells she observed in each stage of mitosis.
Of the 200 cells she counted, only six were in anaphase.
One cell cycle of onion root tissue takes 16 hours. Calculate how many minutes
these cells spend in anaphase.

Hope someone can help me out with it. Thanks a lot!
(edited 2 years ago)
the different stages of mitosis take different lengths of time to complete.
at any given time, each cell will be at a different point in the cell cycle.
so you can expect that the percentage of cells observed in a stage of mitosis will be about the same as the percentage of the length of the cell cycle that that stage lasts.

so you calculate the % of cells in anaphase (as a decimal between 0 and 1), and multiply this by the total length of the cell cycle (in minutes)
Hi,
Hope u r well!

If 6 cells out of 200 were in anaphase [the Q tells u]

so the fraction of cells in anaphase is 6/200 [3% tho u don't need to say that]

This was at a given point in time, yeah? i.e. when the student looked and counted.

This proportion of cells [6/200] would exist for the whole cycle [assumption] - 16 hours is 16*60 minutes.

So 6/200 * 16 * 60 gives the no of minutes for which the cells would be in anaphase [the].

Hope this helps!
Be safe!

M.
Thanks a lot for the reply, it really helps a lot.
Be safe:h:

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