Gregor Johann Mendel :: essays research papers fc

Gregor Mendel was born in Heinzendorff in 1822 and died in 1884.Ever since Mendel was a boy he was very interested in science.Whenever his friends would come back from school they would tell Mendelwhat they studied and he would be so excited. Mendel was so interestedabout what his friends told him that he begged his father to let himstudy. This meant a great sacrifice to his father he because owned asmall farm.Needless to say, he sent his young intelligence Gregor, who was only el until nowto school. At school Mendel showed great intelligence so much that hisparents decided to deny themselves the pleasures of life to keep theirson in school. When Mendel was a young man, he became a scienceteacher, and a monk. He had a pea garden, there he conducted hisexperi custodyts that are renowned by science teachers today. wad told Mendel that he looked like his father. He would thinkto himself, why do some people resemble their father and some peopletheir mother? Many men before Mendel thoug ht that very same question,yet with all their efforts to figure out this mystery only made things more than complex. How does heredity work? Mendel chose to set thisquestion with peas. Because peas are easily bred, and grow quicklymade them a perfect candidate for hereditary experiments.Mendel tried experiments with crossing long pea plants with deadpea plants, the results were tall ones. Mendel thought that thistallness trait must have been the dominant trait. Of course he did notlet this matter rest here, He left the tall children alone until theyformed ripe seeds. Then he took the seeds and planted them. Then the"grandchildren" plants grew. What happened surprised Mendel not all ofthe plants were tall, 1 out of every four plants grown were short.Mendel thought that shortness must be a recessive trait.Mendel tilled and grew more pea plants in groups of four. Yetsomething even more surprising came to be - the short plant of the fouroffspring had nothing but short offspri ng, and one tall plant hadnothing but tall offspring, but the other two plants gave a mixture,one short offspring for every three tall ones.Mendel thought to himself how about the shape of the seeds?because some peas were move and some were wrinkled. He wondered ifthese followed the same pattern as did the height.It was an amazing discovery, and people began by shrugging andsaying "so what, what does it amount to," "Does it concern raisingpeas, or even all plants.