Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Meiosis: GCSE Biology Exam

SEX. SEX SEX SEX. Gametes.

There's a strong link between those words. Gametes are sex cells. If you cring at the the word sex, you probably want to be looking at the year 9 science bite size. Sorry.

Meiosis



This is the thing I struggle with the most. Got my book at the ready. Some key things to know before I begin fumbling through this topic:


  • Meiosis produces four haploid nuclei. The chromosomes in these are not identical. I repeat, NOT IDENTICAL.
  • Meiosis only happens in the reproductive organs like the testes and ovaries. If you don't know what the testes are, it's the 2 bits near your penis. If you don't know what a penis is... 
  • Meiosis makes new cells that have half the original number of chromosomes.
I over complicate this all the time so i'll keep it simple.

If you didn't understand the diagram:

Maths terms: Doubles, halves and halves. (x2/2/2)

Ellie Griffin terms (thank god for her): If you make 6 cakes each for friends and have 4 friends you double the mixture to make 12 cakes, and then double them to make 24 and now you have enough! This backwards is simply divided by 4. 4 Haploid gametes.

Sorry this one is a bit crap... had to have Ellie explain it to me. Thank god for friends eh? 


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