R.I.P. Norman Borlaug

Norman Borlaug, the winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize passed away on Sept. 12 at the respectable age of 95. His life and work were among the most inspiring of all the natural scientists. In short, Mr Borlaug single-handedly saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in Africa and most notably in India, thanks to his efforts developing high-yielding varieties of wheat.

His method was rather simple, and most of his research took place before the more modern techniques of genetic engineering became available. Essentially he would cross-breed hundreds of varieties of crops and grow each one of them on a small plot, to see which ones gave the best results. His constant nemesis was the wheat rust, a parasite that grows underneath the stem's surface and can propagate very far away, carried by the winds. Dr Borlaug kept finding new varieties of wheat that could resist rust effectively, saving entire populations from starvation.

Thanks to Dr Borlaug's dedication, the doomsday scenario of mass starvation in Africa and India following an exponential population growth at the end of the twentieth century did not come to pass. For this Dr Borlaug will be remembered as one of science's most inspiring life stories.