binary fission

[′bīn·ə·rē ′fish·ən]

(biology)

A method of asexual reproduction accomplished by the splitting of a parent cell into two equal, or nearly equal, parts, each of which grows to parental size and form.

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References in periodicals archive

Bacteria are prokaryotic, unicellular, and reproduce asexually by a process called binary fission. Bacteria usually have one circular chromosome (some bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, has a linear chromosome) and in some cases small, circular molecules of DNA called plasmids.

Chapter 3 Bacterial zoonoses

Binary fission, the process by which bacteria reproduce, is a more insidious threat to people than nuclear fission and the cause of uncounted deaths throughout the world each year.

Plagues, bugs and superbugs: modern man is, according to the tabloid press, as susceptible to plagues as were his distant ancestors. Current plagues include obesity, global warming and the so called MRSA 'superbug', which kills an estimated 5,000 hospital patients every year in the UK alone

Measurements taken with the Gammasphere detector at the Lawrence Berkeley (Calif.) National Laboratory indicate that this rare process, known as neutronless binary fission, occurs only 1 to 10 times per 10,000 fission events.

Rare fission processes

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