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Watch America 250: The Breakthroughs That Built American Science — Part 1
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In 1944, Norman Borlaug launched the Green Revolution while working in Mexico on research funded by the Rockefeller Institute. He bred high yielding, disease resistant wheat strains, a development that boosted agricultural output in developing nations and helped avert widespread starvation. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for this work.

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1:05:37So he's standing on a stool behind the surgeon basically being like okay now put this thing and now do this and now do that. It was successful and it really changed the landscape of cardiac surgery because now this told people the heart is something you can operate on. Before it's like do not take a scalpel to the heart. What are you doing >> right >> now? It's like I took a scalpel to a heart of a a 2-year-old infant or or a baby >> and and it worked and it's the foundation of so much medical saving over the years. >> We are still in 1944, the launch of the green revolution. This has nothing to do with the green new deal, by the way.

1:06:18>> No, no, not at all. This is Norman Borlo. He initiated this landmark research um while he was in Mexico um funded by the Rockefeller Institute. By the way, he bred high yielding disease resistant wheat strains and he launched the green revolution, won the Nobel Prize in peace in 1970 because this transformed developed nation developing nations. the economy grew. Um, there was no longer a starvation crisis because now I can grow enough food, >> right? Uh, it's just it's incredible.

From the episode
  1. EP 46

    America 250: The Breakthroughs That Built American Science — Part 1

    Part one of our America 250 special traces the inventions, institutions, and scientific breakthroughs — from Franklin to Sputnik — that helped build the United States into a global scientific power.

    America 250: The Breakthroughs That Built American Science — Part 1

America 250History of Science