Short answers, pulled from the story.
The domestication of maize began around 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico. Ancient farmers engineered the wild teosinte plant into a single ear with soft kernels through generations of selection.
Nixtamalization is a process where maize is soaked in an alkaline solution made from wood ash and lime to unlock the B-vitamin niacin. This treatment prevented pellagra disease in populations that adopted maize and allowed the Maya to create tamales and porridges.
Barbara McClintock discovered jumping genes or transposons in maize and won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work. The sequencing of the maize genome was completed in 2008, revealing 32,540 genes.
The Catholic Church initially refused to allow maize to be used for communion bread because only wheat could undergo the miracle of transubstantiation. This theological restriction delayed the acceptance of maize in religious rituals until it spread to Italy and West Africa in the 16th century.
92% of the U.S. maize crop was genetically modified by 2016 to combat pests like the European corn borer and corn rootworm. These genetically modified varieties, such as Bt maize, help reduce annual losses that otherwise reach a billion dollars.