Antoine Boutros - Mendel’s experiments had significant scientific and economic implications. As a result of his knowledge of the laws of genetics and rules of hybridization, scientists were able to utilize the best of what nature offers us in resources by pairing the best of them and expanding their crops. Today, there are 200,000 kinds of highly developed plants, however we utilize only tenth of those. Furthermore what is being planted in the fields does not exceed 2000 kinds. Among those 2000 kinds, only 20 cops occupy 90% of the cultivated areas. As a result of hybridization, we now have new and previously unknown brands such as winter wheat for example, which is the result of a complex pairing between Russian and Argentinian brands. In other words, this new science allows us to restructure plants and consolidate other plants that have different and varied traits.

Nature has forms of life whose genes carry data that has not changed for hundreds of thousands of years and are transferred from one generation to the other. Similarly, there are now new forms with different data that are man-made and that are now coexisting with the older types but that are more useful.

If this transformation leads towards good benefits ,it often takes a wrong direction and with that we find how far the science of genetics is complex and how far it has developed from the experiments on the pea seed to the consolidation of new and previously unknown plants by multinational scientists.

Experiments addressing the principles of post-Mendel genetics showed that the total domination or total isolation of one of the traits is not a certainty every time. One should not regard a being as being the outcome of independent traits with each one being defined by a singular gene. A single gene can affect a group of traits as a group of traits could be affected by several genes. The term “trait” is no more than an abstraction used to facilitate explanation or clarification.

In 1915, a major development led to a significant step in understanding the structure of the gene. Scientists concluded that the chromosome does not resemble a thread as previously thought; but more likely a necklace consisting of several beads (numbering in fact 1250 in every human chromosome). These beads, which are structured in a linear form, are the real bases of the mysteries of genetics.

The human cell consists of no less that 100,000 genes distributed on 46 chromosomes and the science of heredity became in fact the science of genetics. Then the term underwent another transformation. The gene no longer represents a structural hereditary unit with a defined length; rather it became an operational entity.

As for the structure of the gene, it is essentially the same in all living beings. It consists of serial particles of nucleic acids especially deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) in some viruses and takes a linear shape forming part of the chromosome.

The DNA’s particle consists of four bases or chemical letters representing the genetics information codes. The DNA’s particle taken from the human cell includes 3.5 billion bases named genome and the ability to read it is key to knowing the genetics information. In comparison, a mouse’s genome in its turn consists of 3.5 letters while that of a lizard consists of 30 times that much. In the world of botany, the corn’s genome consists of 15 billion and the iris of 90 billion. Paradoxically, a human’s DNA only differs from that of a chimpanzee by 1.6% or less than the difference between a chimpanzee and a gorilla. Further, human’s genes are closer to those of the corn than those between one form of bacteria and another.

Next article: How is information transferred from one cell to the other?

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