Biology Bellringer

Question

There are about 3.3 x 109 base pairs per cell in the human genome. There are approximately 650 daltons (atomic mass units - average) per base pair and one dalton is 1.67x10-24 grams. A fertilized human egg will undergo rapid mitosis in the early embryonic phase. Assuming perfect mitotic doubling, how many grams of DNA will an embryo have after 30 cycles of mitotic doubling? Express your answer in Scientific Notation.

Answer 1

So Jacquilin S.,

Where is the difficulty here? Solve first for one cell (that's a multiplication and a division), then scale up by 2^30. You have 2 significant digits there, and I think you can handle Scientific Notation? It's x.y ^ 10^k where x and y are digits, and k is an integer (which can be negative, just sayin'.)

-- Cheers, --Mr. d.