In this episode of pplpod, we dig into the life of Gregor Mendel, the 19th-century Augustinian friar who escaped a life of farming to become the posthumous "father of modern genetics". We explore how Mendel utilized the 2-hectare experimental garden of St. Thomas' Abbey to cultivate some 28,000 plants—mostly peas—identifying the "invisible factors" we now recognize as genes.

Join us as we discuss:

• The Struggle: How Mendel joined the monastery to avoid "perpetual anxiety" about money, only to fail the oral portion of his teacher certification exams twice.

• The Discovery: His formulation of the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment, based on observing dominant and recessive traits like plant height and seed shape.

• The ...