Q.Describe three phases taking place during interphase.

The word "interphase" is often translated as the cell's "resting phase", and that name is genuinely misleading. Picture a stage crew between two performances: to an outside audience the curtain is down and nothing seems to be happening, but backstage the crew is working hard — rebuilding sets, checking props, getting everything ready for the next show. That is exactly what a cell is doing during interphase.

Interphase is the period between two successive cell divisions. Far from being idle, the cell is intensely busy preparing for the division to come — it grows steadily and it replicates its DNA in an orderly way, so that when it finally divides, each daughter cell will receive a complete and correct set of genetic material.

A striking feature of interphase is how much of the cell cycle it fills:

• In a typical 24-hour human cell cycle, the visible division (the M phase) lasts only about an hour.
• Interphase makes up more than 95 per cent of the total cycle time. …