In the early 1920s, a trio of scientists sat down for a break at Rothamsted agricultural research station in Hertfordshire, UK. One of them, a statistician by the name of Ronald Fisher, poured a cup of tea, then offered it to his colleague Muriel Bristol, an algae specialist who would later have the plant C. muriella named after her. Bristol refused, as she liked to put the milk in before the tea. Fisher was skeptical. Surely it didn’t matter? Yes, she said, it did. A cup with milk poured first tasted better.
“Let’s test her,” chipped in the third scientist, who also happened to be Bristol’s fiancé. That raised the