Had it not been for a bunch of peas on the google homepage, chances are you wouldn't have even heard of Gregor Mendel least of all remember his (189th) birthday. Mendel as google will tell you was an Austrian botanist and monk and is considered as the father of genetics.
Mendel was born Johann in Heinzendorf, Austria (it is presently part of the Czech Pepublic) and got the name Gregor after he joined a monastery of the Augustinian order.
In Vienna, he studied physics and mathematics as also the anatomy and physiology of plants.
It was however in a monastery in Brunn that he began his experiments with plant hybridisation with the pea plant.
His findings enabled him to formulate the Law of Segregation and the Law of
Independent Assortment. These laws would later be known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.
Soon after he turned his attention to honeybees and even as his peers and contemporaries were less than welcoming of his work, Mendel himself did little or nothing to publicise his works.
Further his responsibilities in the order left him little or no time to pursue his scientific goals.
On January 6, 1884 Mendel died aged 61, his work largely gone unrecognised.
The following century however was more kind and his work got the recognition it truly deserved and Mendel was acknowledged as the father of genetics.
Over the recent years, google has been creating artistic doodles to commemorate special occasions.
Some of these are static, others are youtube videos and even others like the one celebrating Les Paul's birthday are interactive.
