Reviewer for Science 8
The Human Digestive Tract
The Digestive tract is a long tube of organs
food ingestion, nutrient absorption and
distribution, and waste excretion.
Digestion refers to the process of breaking
down food.
Two types of digestion:
 Mechanical Digestion – chewing,
biting, and churning of food to
smaller pieces.
 Chemical Digestion – complex food
molecules are chemically
decomposed by enzymes that speed
up the chemical reaction.
Pharynx
- AKA throat is a muscular tube that
serves as common passageway of
food and air.
Stomach
- 30cm long organ
- Can hold up to 1.5L of bolus from
the esophagus.
- Gastric juice
Enzymes
- Amylase helps you break down food
easier.
- Pepsin helps to breakdown proteins
into simple peptides.
- Lipase breaks down fat molecules.
Epiglottis
- a flap of tissue that automatically
shuts the entrance to prevent food
from entering the passage of air.
Small Intestine
- 7m long 2.5cm wide
- Duodenum, jejunum, ileum.
- Absorption occurs where nutrients
and water are extracted from food.
Assimilation
- In the site of the absorption in the
small intestine, there is a large
surface area that has folds with
fingerlike projections called
villi(villus) in its lining. And at the
center of each villus are tiny blood
vessels called capillaries and tiny
lymph vessel called the lacteal.
- These structures are part of the
circulatory system that helps
transport the absorbed carbohydrates,
proteins, lipids, and other nutrients
throughout the body via
bloodstream. This process is called
assimilation.
Mitosis
- Is a type of cell division that
produces two identical daughter cells
from a single parent cell.
- It occurs in four phases: prophase,
metaphase, anaphase, and telophase.
1. Prophase
- Nuclear membrane disintegrates.
- Chromatin undergoes progressive
condensation due to supercoiling,
 Reviewer for Science 8

resulting for it to be visible with a - Results when a child is diagnosed

light microscope and the formation with trisomy 21(down syndrome) or
of chromosomes. having 3 copies of the 21 st
- The centrosome duplicates, and each chromosome.
one moves to one of the cell’s ends,
where microtubules are formed.
2. Metaphase
- The centrioles are now at the
opposite end of the cell.
- The microtubules attach to the
centromere of each chromatid.
- Each chromosome has already been
duplicated during interphase so at
this point, the two copies separate.

3. Anaphase
- The most crucial phase of mitosis
because of the distribution of
original genetic information occurs.
- The two groups of chromosomes
move apart towards the opposite
poles of the cell thanks to the
microtubules.
- Each set of genetic information
concentrates around the centrosome.
4. Telophase
- The microtubules that aided the
migration of the two groups of
chromosomes disappear.
- The chromosomes start to
decondense, exposing the DNA and
initiating the process characteristic of
an independent cell.
- Two new nuclear envelopes begin to
form.
Human number of chromosomes
- 23 pairs total of 46
Trisomy 21