The year was 1947. The place, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bacteriology professor Stanley Knight had long admired the research of Nobel laureate H.J. Muller, whose body of work within and after the Manhattan Project focused on mutations in living things exposed to radiation. Muller’s research had been weaponized, but his findings got Knight thinking: Could the science behind radiation-induced mutations be used for productive ends—to make a better piece of cheese? It was a highly Wisconsonian quest.
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