What do broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, brussels sprouts and kohlrabi have in common?
Well, firstly, they're all vegetables. But more interestingly, they're all the same species, Brassica oleracea. They all stem (pun intended) from wild mustard, which through the years has been selectively bred in different ways to enhance certain traits.
Kale and Chinese broccoli were created by making the leaves of the plants bigger, and were the first brassica domesticated, sometime before 300BCE. Cabbages were created in the 1200s by selecting plants with a large terminal bulb (the growing end at the top of the plant). Brussels sprouts were developed from plants with large lateral buds (the ones along the plant's stem), and the stem was developed to become kohlrabi.
The red grapefruit came from where!?
The red grapefruit eaten today is a product of 1950's US program Atoms For Peace. This program's goal was to find uses for nuclear power outside of war. One thing they came up with was the Gamma Garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. Radioactive material was put in the middle of a garden, around which rings of plants were planted. Of course, the plants closest to the center died, the ones at the very outside were largely unaffected, and the ones in the middle mutated. One of these mutated plants was the 'Star Ruby', a sweeter and redder grapefruit. Fourteen years later, the industry developed the 'Rio Red' grapefruit, which was even redder. These two cultivars have been combined into the 'Rio Star' variety that is common today.