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Corn was born here about 9,000 years ago, when Mesoamerican farmers first started to domesticate the wild grass known as teosinte.

And yet experts all agree that the genus teosinte is the ancestral form of all modern varieties of maize.

Over the last eight years, the participating research groups have investigated around 9,000 varieties of maize and 170 varieties of teosinte around the world.

The results showed how the root structure has radically changed during the domestication of teosinte to cultivated maize.

"This is not the case with teosinte."