At t = 0, the bacterial cell number is 10,000 cells/mL. At t = 480 minutes, the cell number increased to 320,000 cells/mL. The mean generation time during this exponential growth period, rounded off to the nearest integer, is ________ minutes.

[latex]

textbf{Answer:} 96 minutes

textbf{Explanation:} The mean generation time can be calculated using the formula:

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[latex]
text{Generation Time} = frac{text{Time Interval} (t)}{text{Number of Generations} (n)}
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where
[latex]
n = frac{log (text{Final cell count}) – log (text{Initial cell count})}{log 2}
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