Google Commemorates the Father of Genetics – “Peas enjoy!”
Google has created a special pea pod logo dedicated to Gregor Mendel in celebration of his 189th birthday today.
“We celebrate Gregor Mendel, Austrian botanist & father of genetics, born July 20, 1822," Google tweeted.
"Peas enjoy!”
Mendel is remembered as the father of genetics. He died on Jan. 6, 1884 aged 61.
Mendel became a monk in 1843 and then attended the University of Vienna where he studied botany. He returned to his monastery in 1854 and began planning out a revolutionary experiment while working in the gardens.
He crossed pea plants with distinctive height or seed color properties: tall or short, and green or yellow respectively.
Mendel experimented with the parent generation, which comprised plants with homozygous alleles for a single trait, meaning the genes on the plants’ maternal and paternal chromosomes were the same, unlike heterozygous alleles which are different.
He also worked with the the offspring of the first generation, which contained some plants with homozygous alleles and some with heterozygous alleles for a trait.
His work revealed that alleles can be dominant or recessive, and he formulated the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. However, he do not receive recognition during his lifetime.
In the 20th century, Mendel’s research was rediscovered later by different botanists including Carl Erich Correns, and his findings became known as Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance.
