Gregor Mendel Trivia Quiz

Answer: Austria

Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 in a small Austrian town, Heinzendorf, which is now a part of Czech Republic. His parents were both farmers.

Answer: True

Most people recognize Mendel's name by his works in the field of genetics, but he was also a priest and a monk. His birth name was Johann Mendel. He took the name Gregor when he entered the abbey. Nowadays, he is known as Gregor Johann Mendel or Johann Gregor Mendel.

Answer: University of Vienna

Mendel studied in the University of Vienna from 1851 to 1853. Apart from zoology and botany, he also took up history, mathematics and physics. This university was founded in 1365. The Gregor Mendel Institute (GMI) of Molecular Plant Biology, which was founded in 2000, was named after him.

Answer: Pea

There are several reasons why Mendel chose the pea. First and foremost, the pea has a very short life cycle, which means that the results can be observed very quickly. Secondly, there are many discrete traits that can be observed easily with the naked eye, for example, the color of the flowers, the height of the plants and the shape of the pods.

Answer: Honeybee

Mendel studied beekeeping when he was a child. After studying the pea for several years, he wanted to extend and generalize his experiment on animals.

Nowadays, a very popular insect that is used by geneticists to study genetics is the fruit fly (its scientific name is Drosophila melanogster). This species has only four chromosome pairs so it is very easy to study its genetics variation and inheritance.

Answer: "Experiments on Plant Hybridization"

Mendel recorded his observations and came out with his Mendelian inheritance theory in his paper entitled "Experiments on Plant Hybridization" in 1866.

"On the Origin of Species" was written by Charles Darwin.

Answer: His church supported his genetic experiments

Before becoming a priest, Mendel taught physics in an abbey.

Unfortunately, Mendel's experiment on plants did not receive full support from the Roman Catholic Church. However, his university professors and colleagues motivated him to study more on the genetics and inheritance traits.

Answer: Both of these

The law of segregation is also known as Mendel's first law. It states that during cell division, each gamete receives only one copy of gene of its parent cell. This law was proved to be correct and it can be explained by the meiosis process.

The law of independent assortment is also known as Mendel's second law. It states that during gamete formation, the allele combine independently of one another. Let say the first set of allele is X x and the second set of allele is Y y. So, there are all together four possibilities of its gamete outcome, namely X Y, X y, x Y and x y.

Answer: True

Charles Darwin's explanation of genetic inheritance using his pangenesis theory was far more acceptable to the scientific community at that time.

Answer: Nephritis (kidney inflammation)

Mendel died in 1884. After his death, all his works and papers on genetics were burnt by his abbot.

"My scientific studies have afforded me great gratification; and I am convinced that it will not be long before the whole world acknowledges the results of my work." ~ Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)