Sure you know the Zodiac
sign Gemini - mythologically considered
twins. A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can
either be monozygotic ("identical"), meaning that they develop from
one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic
("fraternal") because they develop from two separate eggs that are
fertilized by two separate sperm. Can you easily
identify the identical looking twins whom you know ?
There are so many stories
and myths associated with ‘twins’ – strangely, many Cinemas would show that the
twins would react for the other – i.e., when villain hits one, the pain would
be felt by the other remaining elsewhere !! [Nagarjuna in Hello Brother] - there are many comedy scenes shown as
arising out of the mistaken identity of the twins……. ‘Apoorva Sahodarargal’ the
Kamal starrer was the story of twins – one normal and one dwarf; Jeans was
another; the Shankar Science fiction
written by legendary Sujata - Enthiran [Robot] directed by Shankar featured
Rajinikanth in dual roles as a scientist and an android robot. In one of the scenes, Aishwarya Rai would
be preparing for her examination in Medical science and Chitti would revise the
minutest details astonishingly. - that was about monozygotic twins.
Twins Days is a festival for
biological twins that takes place every
summer since 1976 in Twinsburg, Ohio. It
is the largest annual gathering of twins in the world, and draws thousands of
participants from all over the United States and elsewhere in the world. The
event, which takes place on the first full weekend in August, routinely
attracts about 2,000 pairs of twins. Back home, in God’s own Country, in a remote
tropical village of Kodinhi, in Kerala, there are almost six times as many twins born than the
global average. In 2008 alone 15 pairs of twins were born in the village out of
300 healthy deliveries and this year is expected to top that number.
Twins, may not
look alike; may not be born at the same time; there can be difference in time. One
of the famous twins in Cricket is Mark and Steve Waugh who were not identical. Hamish
and James Marshall who played for New Zealand were identical – though the
comparison stops there.
Twins will
share a common birth day …… is the common accepted theory – but – not necessarily. They can be born minutes apart ~ and that
could fall in two different days / months / years even ! In July 2012, Mother Donna Keenan, 28, went into labour while watching Italy play
Spain in the Euro 2012 final with her partner and his parents at their home in
the Northumberland market town of Wooler. She
started having contractions in Northumberland and gave birth to son
Dylan in the living room of his grandparents’ house; later she was then taken
to hospital in Scotland and gave birth to daughter Hannah. The babies were born in different countries !!
Now read this report in Times of India of
date. Vietnam has identified an
extremely rare case of bi-paternal twins -twins with different fathers -a
professor at a DNA testing lab in Hanoi. A set of twins born to a Vietnamese
couple, whose names have not been released, were recently taken for testing
because of stark differences in the children's appearances, according to local
reports.
“This is rare not only for Vietnam, but for the
world,” president o the Genetic Association of Vietnam, said, explaining that
the two children had different fathers but the same mother. This can happen if
two eggs from the same mother are fertilised by sperm from two different men
during separate acts of sexual intercourse within the same ovulation period. A
woman's egg has a life-span of between 12 and 48 hours, he said, while a sperm
can last for between seven and 10 days. It is during this overlap that it is
possible for two eggs to be fertilised. According to the state-run Tuoi Tre
newspaper, the Vietnamese husband requested genetic testing at the Hanoi lab to
determine whether he was the biological father of both his wife's twins.
The 34-year-old's relatives pressured him to
take the test because one of the babies looked strikingly different from him
and the other child, the report said. The result from the tests indicated that
the man was related to only one of the babies. Ruling out a hospital mixup, his
wife was found to be the biological mother of both children, Tuoi Tre reported.
According to Dan Tri on line news site, the twins were of the same sex, born on
the same day just a few hours apart, but look completely different. The report
said the twins are now two years old and one of them has thick, wavy hair while
the other has thin, straight hair.
Another rare case of bipaternal twins was
reported in US last year, when a court ruled that a man was only required to
pay child support for one girl in a set of twins after DNA tests proved he was
not the father of both.
Strange are
the ways of people.. !!!
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar.
9th Mar 2o16
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