Modern genetics began with the experiments of Gregor Mendel. In his careful and quantitative work with garden peas, Mendel discovered that discrete units called genes are responsible for inheritance. Mendel's laws, which reflect the rules of probability, explain the characteristics and proportions of offspring born to a particular set of parents. Modern geneticists continue to extend the principles discovered by Mendel to new organisms and more complex patterns of inheritance. Gregor Mendel formulated a particular …showed first 75 words of 264 total…

…showed last 75 words of 264 total…the offsprings had the dominant trait and 25% had the recessive trait, for a 3:1 ratio. Mendel's explanation was that genes have alternative forms (alleles) and that each organism inherits one allele for each gene from each parent. These separate (segregate) during gamete formation, so that a sperm or egg carries only one allele. After fertilization if the 2 alleles are different, the dominant allele is expressed in the offspring and the other allele is masked. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**