Comments on: Twins…Are They Exactly the Same?

By: Gustave

Gustave — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:28:00 +0000

And do you think you are the norm as twin sisters?

By: Gustave

Gustave — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:26:00 +0000

Il semblerait que même les jumeaux identiques ne seraient pas identiques au niveau du génome. Dù moins c’est ce que prétend un chercheur de l’Université Western Ontario, Shiva M. Singh dans:

Ontogenetic De Novo Copy Number Variations (CNVs) as a Source of Genetic Individuality: Studies on Two Families with MZD Twins for Schizophrenia

Guillaume Girard, biologiste

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017125

http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Scientist+discovers+twins+identical+even+they+look+alike/4532673/story.html#ixzz1IZFwhEk8

By: Kompeito

Kompeito — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 03:00:00 +0000

My sister and I are 16 year old identical twins. Reading through comments here, it surprises how little people know what I thought to be common knowledge about twins.. ha.

When I was younger and used to frequent forums, it seemed like everyone was vehemently aware that “twins are different! they don’t have to be the same!” and they’d act angry at the seeming perception that twins were the same.. except there wasn’t really anyone on that side anyway. I also grew up hearing that twins fought a lot. Hmm..

As for my sister and I, we are pretty similar. We share food preferences, aesthetic tastes, social views, etc. Gradually, however, we’ve grown to look more different over the years (because of mutations, probably), and slightly different temperaments. I have no complex over our similarity; it only makes sense. If not for the originally identical genes, we’ve at least shared the same upbringing, environment, and so on.

The main bothersome thing about “societal expectations” is the whole image of mysticism. I get questions about telepathy etc. My twin and I don’t share telepathy, although we understand each other very well because we’ve grown up together. I can understand why people would wonder, but seriously? Try not to shove your corny ESP ideas onto me just because I have a biological copy :/

By: Claire

Claire — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:04:00 +0000

Great topic for an article and I have just one note because I understand that this is a learning experience in getting properly attributed images, using images with permission as well as credible sources.

I recognized the black and white photo of the twin girls as the work of renowned photographer Diane Arbus, though the credit line is to ‘elinar’ and is from a flickr page that has a note that this is a cropped version (smaller detail) of Diane Arbus’s photo. Would you please revise the photo credit to the original photographer (after checking permission copyright status – might be from Metropolitan Museum of Art)?

You can see the original full-sizd photo and some other information about Diane Arbus here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus

By: Mirkosansan

Mirkosansan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:35:00 +0000

I am an identical twin and I have always tested higher in i.q. than my sister. She is a yard care worker and never finished university. I have a doctorate in the humanities and teach. Our personalities are, and always have been, very different. Do twins dress alike because they think alike and just naturally want to wear the same thing every day? No, nonsense. We used to fight like cats and dogs over what to wear in early childhood. Finally, my mother said “You don’t have to dress alike, you know”. What a revelation. What freedom! Based on my own experience as an identical twin, I’d say societal expectations are responsible for a lot of perceived identicalness in personalities in identical twins. I’ve read a lot of crap on identical twins along the lines of “separated at birth but, wow, they both have a cat and use the same brand of toothpaste!”. DNA aside, I’d say that two people, no matter what their outward appearance, are separate and unique on the inside. People who expect identical twins to be like clones in sci-fi movies really irk me.

By: Lionel

Lionel — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:46:52 +0000

Hi Rachael, Great Post
As Guy said, I’ve also learned a lot about twins by reading this post, thank you. I think its interesting that women from 30-50 years old are more likely to have twins.
I also think its interesting that out of all multiple births twins are 95% of all multiple births, even though they only come about every 90 or so births. Triplets are born every 1 out of 10,000 births, and are becoming more popular as Briana C. said, with fertility treatment. Fraternal twins are more common than identical twins, because it is more rare for a single fertilized egg to divide into to fetuses.
This is a great site for information.

http://pregnancyandbaby.sheknows.com/pregnancy/baby/Baby-boom–Expecting-twins-triplets-or-more-5580.htm

By: shanika

shanika — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:57:04 +0000

this is an interesting website i have just recently learned about twins which i am researching at the moment i wanted to ask are there any differences in twins due to only the environment?

By: guy

guy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:28:31 +0000

Let me start off by saying that i learned a lot about twins and how they come to be. I found a few more reasons of how someone is more likley to have twins. If a woman is in their 30′s or 40′s gives them more of a chance because they have higher levels of estrogen. If a woman is a twin her slef that also gives them a higher chance of haveing twins because they have that trait. The only thing i want to critisize you on is that you say identical twins are exatly the same. Since they are identical that does not mean they are the same person. Alot of the time twins do have the same friends. I also see a lot of twins that like diffrent things and have different friends. All in all good post.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Twins_identical_and_fraternal

By: Lucy and Hannah

Lucy and Hannah — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:07:43 +0000

Hi, my name is Lucy and I have an identical twin. We are a rare kind of twin. We are monoamniotic twins, which share the same amniotic sac. We also shared the same umbilical cord, which spilt to feed both of us. We are also mirror image. Our teeth came in on opposite sides at around the same time. Our parts on on opposite sides. Although we are both right handed. My mom says that her doctor told her that there was a 50% chance that one or both of us would die before we were born. That is partly because we could have cut off one of the others blood supply if our cords got too tangled. There was no dividing membrane between us and we kicked each other in the face a lot. But both of us survived. My mom’s cousin also had monoamniotic twins. One of them has severe heart problems because their internal organs also were mirror image and her wiring is all wrong. Plus her heart didn’t form properly. She’s survived many surgeries and made it past her first year. We hope she will live a fairly normal life.

This kind of twin is not supposed to run in families because it’s so rare. But there is an instance of this kind of twin in every generation in our family as far back as my great grandfather. Past that point there are twins, but we don’t know if they were monoamniotic or not. They seem to be identical in any case. We have a picture of my great great great grandfather and his twin brother. They look like Abraham Lincoln. So in my mom’s generation there are two cases of monoamniotic twins, in my grandfather’s generation there is one set of them and in my great-grand father’s generation there is a set of them, but one didn’t survive. They didn’t even know she was carrying twins until after the baby was born. But they know she carried a monoamniotic set of twins because they could see how the remains were attached to the umbilical cord.

We also have chickens that just laid an egg with two yolks. I guess if that hatched, it would have been monoamniotic chicks!

We are 11 years old and my mom homeschools us.

By: briana c.

briana c. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:44:02 +0000

Hey Rachael,

Great article!! I especially liked the videos explaining how twins are born. Another question you might want to think about is: If having twins is a hereditable trait! I did some of the research for you though and here is what I found… Being a twin does give you an increased chance of having twins, and some families have had many generations of twins. But, being a twin does not mean that you can’t give birth to a single child. Also, some doctors and scientists believe that the ability to have twins is only passed on by the mother, because the mother is the one who ovulates.

But having a family history of giving birth to twins is not the only way that people can have twins, and it is not the only reason WHY people have twins. Some other reasons are birth control pills, fertility pills, dairy products, and if you have children at a later age you have a higher possibility to have twins.

Due to recent TV shows and magazines having twins has become a new fad, and more twins are being born throughout the country… even though the statistics are low, it seems like twins are everywhere. More and more women a year are receiving in vitro fertilization and taking fertilization drugs. But some scientists wonder if taking these drugs and having these procedures will basically CREATE a new hereditable trait in the family to have genes. So in generations to come scientists will be watching these “created” twins to see if they will produce twins or other multiples of children.

Here is a site that can further explain these scientists and doctors theories…. http://multiples.about.com/b/2009/07/10/forum-friday-are-twins-hereditary.htm