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Sequencing the DNA is something like a roadmap that makes it easier to select traits that make potatoes more resistant to disease and environmental burdens, said Shelley Jansky, a longtime research geneticist with the USDA.

"That pangenome really gives us a very powerful tool for manipulating the genetics of the potato and creating potato plants that are better than what we have," said Jansky, who recently retired and was not involved in the research, but specializes in potato genetics.

She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge studying the history of radio astronomy, and is currently a historian in residence at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as well as a Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

An upgraded “next generation” version of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico could begin operations toward the end of the 2020s and settle the debate.

Kurczy grounds readers with a brief but compelling history of radio astronomy: In 1931, scientist Karl Jansky accidentally discovered radio waves from space and presented his findings two years later.