Many of our cells are equipped with a hairlike "antenna" that relays information about the external environment to the cell, and scientists have already discovered that the appearance and disappearance of these so-called primary cilia are synchronized with the process of cellular duplication, called mitosis. Now, cell biologists at Johns Hopkins report the discovery of new information about how this "hair loss" and cell duplication are linked through the dramatic clipping of the tips of the cilia—what the scientists dub decapitation—that begins their disassembly.
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