Genetics Genetics Genetics is a branch of biology concerned with the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms. Gregor Mendel, a scientist and Augustinian friar, discovered genetics in the late 19th-century. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but
Journal of Heredity Journal of Heredity The Journal of Heredity is a peer-reviewed scientific journal concerned with heredity in a biological sense, covering all aspects of genetics. It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Genetic Association. The trends in topics that have been published in the journal reflect the history of the discipline of genetics. Early issues included many papers on eugenics, particularly under the editorial leadership of the journal's first two editors-in-chief, Paul Popenoe and R. C. Cook. Emphasis on eugenics in the journal declined throughout the 1940s and 1950s as support for the topic waned in