There are about six billion people in the world. But every person is unique. Some people have black eyes; others have brown cyes, blue cyes, or gray eyes. Some have dark hairs others have light hair. Some are tall or thin; others are short or fat. Besides humans, there are millions of other living creatures. Some are so tiny that we simply can't see them with our own eyes. Whatever it is, every living creature is different from every other. Every living thing is a unique combination of characteristics.
Why is each living thing unique? Where do its characteristics come from? Do people receive characteristics from their mothers, or fathers, or both? Which characteristics do they receive? How? These are some of the questions that biologists try to answer. The work of a man by the name of Mendel a hundred years ago was especially important.
世界上约有60亿人。每个人都与众不同。有些人的眼睛为黑色，有些人的眼睛为褐色、蓝色或灰色。有些人头发乌黑，有些人头发浅淡。有些人瘦长，有些人矮胖。除了人类之外，世界上还有数以百万计的其他生物。有些生物微乎其微，是我们无法用肉眼看到的。无论何种生物，每一个都与众不同。每一个生物都是诸多特点独特组合的产物。
为什么每个生物都会与众不同呢?生物的特性又是从何而来?人们的特性是遗传自母亲,还是遗传自父亲，或者是遗传自父母双亲?人们从父母亲身上所得到的又是哪些特性呢?他们又是如何得到这些特性的呢?生物学家试图找到这些问题的答案。一百年前一个名叫门德尔的人所做的研究工作具有特别重要的意义。
Mendel studied plants, especially pea plants. In some ways these plants were all the same. For example they all had flowers. But some had red flowers, and some had white flowers. Some pea plants were tall, and some were very short.
Mendel was especially interested in these differences. He wondered why each plant was of a certain color, shape and size Mendel experimented with thousands of pea plants. First he mated a red flower plant with a white one. To Mendel's amazement, all the offspring plants had red flowers. Mendel was very curious to know what happened to the white color. Then he mated two offspring plants. Every time he did this, they produced three red flower plants and one white flower plant. Now Mendel knew that even red flower plants somehow passed on whiteness. Mendel decided that pea plants carried factors, and parents passed these factors onto their offspring. Today we call these factors genes.
门德尔的研究对象是植物，他尤其注重对豌豆植株的研究。从某些方面来看，豌豆植株都完全一样，例如它们都开花。但是有些豌豆植株开红花，有些却开白花。有些豌豆植株长得很高，有些却很矮。门德尔对这些差异特别感兴趣。他很纳闷，为什么某一棵植株会有某种颜色、某种形状、某种尺寸呢?
门德尔对数以千计的豌豆植株进行了实验。他先将一棵开红花的植株与一棵开白花的植株交配。门德尔惊愕地发现交配后的植株的后
代都开红花。他很想知道有关白颜色的结果，于是他又将两棵子代植株进行了交配。实验的结果是出现了三棵红花植株和一棵白花植株，每次实验的结果都一样。门德尔明白了，即使红花植株也会因某种原因而遗传白颜色。他断定，豌豆植株带有遗传因子，父辈植株将这些遗传因子传给了子代植株。今天我们将这种遗传因子称为基因。
Genes are tiny pieces of matter that carry information from parents to offspring. Based on Mendel's work, biologists began to ask such questions as "Can we apply our information about genes to people?" They discovered that in a person genes told whether he would have brown eyes or blue eyes, whether he would have dark hair or light hair, whether he would be tall or short, whether he would be thin or fat. Now we know that every person is unique. A major reason is that every person is a unique combination of genes.
What would happen if we combined animal genes with plant genes? What would happen if we combined animal genes with human genes? What would happen if we combined one species with another? Obviously, these are bold ideas that have upset many people for ethical reasons. Probably these questions will soon be answered.
基因是一种将遗传信息从父代传给子代的微小物质。依据门德尔的实验结果，生物学家开始提出了许多问题，例如，我们能否将基因理论运用到人的身上。他们发现，一个人的基因可以告诉我们这个人的眼睛是褐色的还是蓝色的，头发是乌黑的还是浅色的，体形是瘦的还是胖的。现在我们知道每个人都是一个与众不同的独特体，原因之一在于每个人都是基因独特组合的产物。
倘若我们把动物的基因与植物的基因交织组合起来，将会出现何种结果呢?如果我们把动物的基因与人的基因交织在一起，或把某一物种的基因与另一种物种的基因组合起来，那又将出现什么样的结果呢?显然，这些大胆的想法由于伦理方面的原因使很多人颇感不安，也许这些问题很快会有答案。
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