Hyperthymestic Syndrome: Extraordinary Memory for Daily Life Events. Darold A. Treffert, MD. There are a number of forms of extraordinary memory. There is factual memory: Kim Peek has memorized over 7600 books. There is numeric memory: Daniel Tammet memorized Pi to 22,514 digits. There is eidetic-like, photographic memory: Stephen Wiltshire memorized Rome from the air after a 45-minute helicopter ride over the city.
When a new cell is created, it must have the same library of genetic information all other cells in the body have access to. Because all the material in the new cell must come from the first cell, the original cell must make a copy of its DNA before completing the process of mitosis. These two sets of DNA only exist for as long as it takes the cell to undergo mitosis, which can be anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes in certain human cells.
Mitosis occurs in four phases. The first phase is prophase. Cells in prophase have an enlarged nucleus, the nucleolus is no longer visible, and the chromosomes appear as short jumbled strands within the nucleus. Cells spend about 14 percent of the cell cycle in prophase. This is the next largest amount of time spent in a phase after interphase.