Human skin cells divide by which process?

Human skin cells undergo division primarily through the process of mitosis. Mitosis is the type of cell division that results in two genetically identical daughter cells, making it essential for growth, development, and tissue repair in multicellular organisms. Human skin is constantly renewing itself, which means that skin cells frequently divide to replace old or damaged cells, and this is achieved through mitosis.

Mitosis involves several stages: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase, followed by cytokinesis, during which the cytoplasm divides, leading to the formation of two separate cells. This process ensures that each new skin cell has the same number of chromosomes and the same genetic information as the original cell.

In contrast, the other processes mentioned differ fundamentally in function and outcome. Binary fission is a form of asexual reproduction seen primarily in prokaryotic organisms like bacteria, while meiosis is a specialized type of cell division that occurs in the formation of gametes (sperm and eggs), resulting in cells with half the number of chromosomes, which is not applicable to skin cell division. Replication refers to the process of duplicating DNA before cell division but does not itself describe how the actual cell division occurs.