What process do cells use to reproduce by dividing in half?

Cells reproduce by dividing in half through the process of mitosis. Mitosis is the mechanism by which a single cell divides to produce two genetically identical daughter cells, each with the same number of chromosomes as the original cell. This is crucial for growth, development, and tissue repair in multicellular organisms.

During mitosis, a cell goes through several stages: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase, culminating in cytokinesis, where the cell physically splits into two. This ensures that each daughter cell has a complete set of genetic material, identical to that of the parent cell.

The other processes mentioned serve different functions. Meiosis, for example, is a specialized type of cell division that occurs in the formation of gametes (sperm and egg cells), reducing the chromosome number by half to ensure genetic diversity. Fission refers to a type of asexual reproduction typically seen in prokaryotes and some single-celled organisms, where the cell divides directly into two equal parts but is not the term most commonly used in the context of eukaryotic cell division. Replication specifically refers to the process of duplicating DNA, not the entire cell division process. Thus, mitosis is indeed the correct term for