but he also wanted to determine what happens when two plants that are each hybrid for two traits are crossed. Mendel therefore decided to examine the inheritance of two characteristics at once.

But less than half of Americans inherit anything. “Most households will pass on little or no inheritance to the next generation,” said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality ...

These days, principles of gene inheritance and transmission are all ... phenotypic patterns both among the offspring of specified hybrid crosses and among naturally occurring families.