Genetics

The branch of biology that deals with heredity, especially the mechanisms of hereditary transmission and the variation of inherited characteristics among similar or related organisms. Video comes from : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4wHaORe9-c

This is a brief introduction to the topic of genetics and is a short documentary film. It talks about the history of genetics and the concepts that provide that foundational knowledge that today's research is built upon. It talks about Gregor Mendel and the concepts that provide the foundational knowledge that today's research is built upon. After being introduced to the fundamental ideas of genetics I can understand more what I'm reading about and the current techniques used to study genetics.



Gregor Mendel was a monk in Austria who raised peas in the monastery gardens. While breeding his peas, he made some big discoveries. They were discoveries about genetics
The peas had several traits he could see. Some plants were tall and some were short. Some had wrinkled pods and some had smooth pods. Some pods were green and some where yellow. The flowers were white or purple.
Mendel looked at each trait and learned how they were passed down to the offspring plants. Since plants breed using pollen, Mendel controlled which plants pollinated other plants. This was how he discovered many important genetic rules.
First he learned that some traits showed up more often and he called them dominant traits. The traits that showed up less often he called recessive.  He discovered that if tall plants and short plants bred, they made a mixed or hybrid offspring.

Hybrid plants are different from dominant plants even if they looked the same. Each gene has two chances at a trait - two copies or alleles. So a hybrid plant could be carrying the allele for a recessive trait even if you can't see it. So, for example, a hybrid plant might be tall like its dominant parent, but it still could have an allele for shortness that you don't see.
When two tall hybrid plants breed, one in four of the offspring are short. This is a 3:1 Mendel saw this and it is still taught in basic genetics classes today.