Science: Mother Was a Thoroughbred

In a white frame laboratory on an outpost of the Essar Ranch near San Antonio, an intense young scientist is operating on a partially anesthetized cow. He injects a local anesthetic into a shaved area on the flank, swabs it with alcohol and makes an incision. Ten minutes later he sews up the incision. The cow is only a scrub from the range of a nearby rancher—but if all goes well she will bear a calf which has two pedigreed parents.

Last week Ray E. Umbaugh, 28, who has never had time to take a degree, told a group of cattlemen and...