Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) was a scientist and Augustinian monk who studied how living things pass traits from one generation to the next. A trait is a feature such as height, color, or shape. Mendel is known for discovering basic rules of inheritance, which explain how traits are passed from parents to offspring.

Mendel was born in 1822 in a small village in the Austrian Empire, which is now part of the Czech Republic. His family were farmers. As a young man, he joined a monastery in the city of Brno. A monastery is a religious community where monks live and work. There, Mendel studied science and mathematics. The monastery garden later became his main place of research.

Mendel conducted experiments using pea plants. Pea plants were useful because they grow quickly and have clear traits, such as round or wrinkled seeds. Mendel carefully controlled which plants were crossed. To cross plants means to breed them together. He recorded the traits of the parent plants and the traits of the offspring over many generations.

From these experiments, Mendel discovered that traits are passed down in predictable patterns. He found that each plant has two units for each trait, one from each parent. Today, these units are called genes. A gene is a piece of information that controls a trait. Mendel also described dominant traits, which appear more often, and recessive traits, which appear only when paired together.

Mendel published his results in 1866, but his work was not widely known at the time. Many scientists did not understand its importance. Years later, around 1900, other scientists rediscovered his research and confirmed his results. This led to the development of genetics, the scientific study of inheritance.

Gregor Mendel died in 1884 in Brno. During his life, he also served as the head of his monastery. Today, he is recognized as the founder of genetics. His experiments with pea plants are still explained in science books because they clearly show how inheritance works.