You may have noticed that the Google homepage and search engine is a bit on the green side today, with a logo made up entirely of green peas. Google isn't celebrating any agricultural event, instead it's marking the birthday of the 'father' of genetics, Gregor Mendel, who, through his work, established the basic principles of genetics and inheritance of certain traits in plants.
The doodle depicts several yellow and green pea pods, labeled G and Y, to indicate their color. This is one of the ways Mendel came up with his theories, by checking to see how the pea colors were passed down through several generations.
Mendel was interested in several fields, astronomy and meteorology for example, and studied philosophy, physics and other related topics.
However, he is now best known for his work on trait inheritance which formed the basis of genetics, a science field which would not be recognized for several tens of years after his research.
Through careful studies, across several generations, he was able to determine that pea offspring inherit several characteristics, like pea color, flower type and so on, from their parents according to some very specific laws.
During several experiments, he was able to demonstrate that these laws would accurately predict the distribution of these traits among offspring.
His work got some attention at the time he published it, in 1865 and 1866, but was largely forgotten afterwards.
Notably, Charles Darwin, who at the time had already published his seminal work, On the Origins of Species, was unaware of Mendel's work and came up with his own, wrong, theory on how traits were passed down through generations.
It was only at the turn of the century that Mendel's work started to excite some interest and gain wide acceptance, as other scientists struggled with the same issues. The word genetics was only started to be used in 1905. Today though, Mendel's work is considered the basis of all genetics research.
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