Human uses of plants or dried flowers. Ornamental plants have sometimes changed the course of history, as in tulipomania. Basic biological research has often been done with plants. In genetics, the breeding of pea plants allowed Gregor Mendel to derive the basic laws governing inheritance, and examination of chromosomes in maize allowed Barbara McClintock to demonstrate their connection to inherited traits. The plant "Arabidopsis thaliana" is used in laboratories as a model organism to understand how genes control the growth and development of plant structures. NASA predicts that space stations or space colonies will one day rely on plants for life support. Scientific advances
Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment life, of creating new diseases, of controlling minds, of influencing heredity, even perhaps in certain desired directions." Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment The Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment was a scientific experiment performed on May 15, 1961, by Marshall W. Nirenberg and his post doctoral fellow, J. Heinrich Matthaei. The experiment deciphered the first of the 64 triplet codons in the genetic code by using nucleic acid homopolymers to translate specific amino acids. In the experiment, an extract from bacterial cells that could make protein even when no intact living cells were present was prepared. Adding an artificial form of RNA consisting