Kiwifruit duplicated its vitamin C genes twice, 50 million and 20 million years ago

Today’s kiwifruit, a member of the Chinese gooseberry family, contains about as much vitamin C as an orange. This extra boost in vitamin C production is the result of the kiwifruit’s ancestors’ spontaneously duplicating their DNA in two separate evolutionary events approximately 50-57 million and 18-20 million years ago, as reported September 20 in the journal iScience.