28/09/2026
A fellow scientist, Martin Mecchia, saw this painting 🖼️ in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid 🇪🇸.
🌱➡️🌾 Look closely at the right-hand side of the landscape 👀 and you’ll find the Miracle of the Wheat Field: wheat sown as the Holy Family passed is said to have grown and ripened instantly, confusing Herod’s pursuers.
The miracle compresses a growing season into a moment.
The work is Joachim Patinir’s Rest during the Flight into Egypt, generally dated around 1518–1520.
🎨 Joachim Patinir was a pioneering Flemish landscape painter.
Patinir’s wheat is remarkably tall 🌾, at least compared to our current wheat.
🧬 Genetics tells a story in which humans have altered wheat gradually over thousands of years. Modern semi-dwarf varieties only became widespread in the twentieth century, when changes involving Rht growth genes helped produce shorter plants capable of supporting high grain yields.