By the mid 19th Century biologists had a big problem to solve - how does heredity work? Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and his cousin Francis Galton (1822-1911) wanted to know because their famous books, The Origin of Species by Natural Selection and Hereditary Genius, only made sense if they understood the basis of inheritance. A lone genius, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), worked on the inherited of features in hybrids of the edible pea for 8 years, presenting a correct solution in 1865. He was a Catholic monk, priest and later Abbot in the Augustinian Monastery of Brunn, near Vienna. He was able to...