The Upshot: While carrying out basic research on inbreeding in maize at the Carnegie Institution’s Long Island research station at Cold Spring Harbor in the early 1900s, George Shull made a discovery that would revolutionize agriculture around the world. His work built on previous science and was further developed by others, including Donald Jones at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, Connecticut. As with many important discoveries, its future applications and effects were not immediately obvious. More than this, to go from Shull’s insight about inbreeding and hybrid vigor in maize to the massive increase in food production for which hybrid corn was responsible by the middle of the twentieth century required the work of many different people in different places. Shull wasn’t always given the credit for this discovery — for scientists in the thick of research, with personal connections and experiences sometimes looming larger than the desire to double-check everything they heard about other people’s work, his work was sometimes overshadowed by that of his colleagues, particularly Edward M. East. The process of discovery and development of hybridization in corn is complex and messy — just like nearly anything involving human intellects and human egos.