Mutant Ninja Cereals

Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation;

Dr. Lagoda said a rust fungus threatened the Japanese pear, a cross between pears and apples. But one irradiated tree had a branch that showed resistance. He said the Japanese cloned it, successfully started a new crop and with the financial rewards “paid for 30 years of research.”

The payoff was even bigger in Europe, where scientists fired gamma rays at barley to produce Golden Promise, a mutant variety with high yields and improved malting. After its debut in 1967, brewers in Ireland and Britain made it into premium beer and whiskey. It still finds wide use.

“The secret,” reads a recent advertisement for a single malt Scotch whiskey costing $49.99 a bottle, is “the continued use of finest Golden Promise barley and the insistence on oak sherry casks from Spain.”