'Green Revolution' Founder Borlaug Dead at 95

Norman Borlaug, who is credited with starting the "green revolution" and saving 1 billion lives, died today in Dallas from complications of cancer, the Dallas Morning News reports. He was 95. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for agricultural innovations that helped avert mass starvation in India and Pakistan. "More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," the Nobel chair said.

Angered by hunger during the Great Depression, the Iowan joined a team of young scientists after World War II to create the disease-resistant wheat that later saved lives. His fame ebbed, but he taught at Texas A&M for years and worked on projects to fight world hunger. His granddaughter said he asked about Africa when she visited him to say goodbye: "That's a testament to the kind of person he was—concerned right to the end." (More obituary stories.)