He happened upon the findings in the mid-fifties, when he decided to save money for his primate-research laboratory by breeding his own lab monkeys instead of importing them from India.

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But every year, a lucky few get the chance to feed, bathe and exercise the endangered animals at the Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China.

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The James Hutton Institute, and its predecessor the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), have had blackcurrant breeding programmes since the 1960s.

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Combine this with entrepreneurial spirit, unique research projects and new technologies and you have a breeding ground for potentially profitable companies.

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Fortunately, Fishell, like many other researchers, shared some of his strains with other research institutions that are willing to provide him with mice for breeding, making the task slightly less daunting.

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In 1952 news of Vogel's wheat filtered down to a remote research station in Mexico, where a man named Norman Borlaug was breeding fungus-resistant wheat for a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

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