In the 1850s and 1860s an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel studied pea plants in his garden. He found that there were rules for how traits passed from one generation of pea plants to the next. The rules are the same for every plant and animal. During his lifetime no one understood how important these findings were.

In 1900 people rediscovered Mendels work. From then on, the new science of genetics grew rapidly. Scientists began to use it to help explain the theory, or idea, of evolution. An English scientist named Charles Darwin had put forth the theory in the 1850s. It describes how species adapt to their environment and how new species form.

In 1953 James Watson of the United States and Francis Crick of England discovered the structure of DNA. Their studies helped scientists understand how genes work and how they make copies of themselves.

By the mid-1970s, scientists had learned how to locate, remove, and insert specific genes in DNA. This work is called genetic engineering. By the 1990s scientists could clone animals, or produce animals that have exactly the same DNA as another animal. In 1996 researchers in Scotland produced the first clone of an adult mammala sheep. Some scientists worked toward cloning human beings. But others saw this work as dangerous and wrong.

In 2003 a team of researchers finished a project to identify and locate all the genes in all human DNA. The results will help scientists in the study of human biology and medicine.

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