Even as a fixture in California cuisine and a sizable industry for the state’s farmers, avocados have presented an ongoing mystery for scientists: How do they easily flip sexes? In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, California researchers have finally answered that question by tracing the process in avocado trees back to a single gene. “Even for a plant that is so familiar to us, there’s been this great mystery for so long,” Jeffrey Groh, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and first author of the study, told SFGATE. “It’s super exciting...