Chimera Twins Story

skelley writes "Below is an audio link on this morning's story on NPR about Chimera twins, or people with two sets of DNA. It turns out that every once in a while a set of fraternal twin eggs merge into one embryo. The resulting person has two sets of DNA. The story says it is possible for a Chimera to have different sets of DNA in different body parts. This can cause complication for body identification, DNA typing for organ transplants, crime investigation, etc. Researchers have no idea how common this is, but suppose that it is a reasonable percentage of all fraternal twin pregnancies, which would mean millions worldwide. No text version. NPR often doesn't publish one. "

Comments

Re:The Chinese and population control

[GearheadX]

Pardon me, Sir.

But what in the name of Hawking are you babbling about?

so the answer is

[the_2nd_coming]

to take multiple DNA samples from a suspect.

hair, blood, cheek, and perhaps ejaculatory(if it is a male)

then compare them, if they al match, then the DNA should be considered accurate.

Re:Odd

[timbloid]

but remember Jurassic Park

Hee hee, a molecular biologist quoting Jurrassic Park?

Re:Instead of hitting the link in in CA

[abelsson]

Assuming you live in the US of course..

legal issues

[kin_korn_karn]

this is going to cause problems with using DNA as evidence in criminal causes. If scientists claim that people may have mixed DNA, then it's not going to be long before some defense attorney uses that to get his client acquitted, or some shady DA uses that to get a conviction that s/he wanted.

Re:Gonna be more common.

[Abcd1234]

Forget invitro. The increasing use of fertility drugs in the past 15-20 years has caused a massive increase in multiple births, and likely increased the number of Chimeras as well.

Perhaps most are stillborn..?

[adrenaline_junky]

Apologies if this is mentioned in the radio program (I have not listened to it), but it seems to me that even if there are theoretically "millions" of these multiple DNA chimera born each year, is it not likely that a very large percentage of them are stillborn due to complications brought on by their condition? The number of *living* chimera may be much smaller.

Re:Heehee

[Igmuth]

Other media outlets manage to do their job without mooching off the taxpayers.

Are these the same media outlets the barrage you with commercials every 30 seconds?

Re:WHY TELL US YOU ARE ATHEIST???

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten bucks says you are either latino or filipino.

Why is that people who's ancestors where brutally converted through torture and mass executions today have such a undying love for Jesus?

Re:Heehee

[Anonymous Coward]

Other media outlets do NOT manage to do their job without mooching off the taxpayers; they manage to sell their soulds without mooching of the taxpayers. But what would one expect from somebody who puts a quote from uber-racist Anne Coulter in his sig?

Re:finally, a valid excuse

[Pray_4_Mojo]

Isn't it highly funny that a "public" radio station has choosen an exclusive, proprietary solution?

There are open source streaming servers (shoutcast, Quicktime streaming server) and plenty of other, commercial servers that rely on open-standards (just like real radio) so that choice of client is irrelevant and up to the user.

My other sig was /.'d

Re:WHY TELL US YOU ARE ATHEIST???

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the ones who didn't died?

um...mod parent funny?

[aastanna]

It's kind of odd this got modded interesting when the pictures are of chocolate mice. I suspect the moderators didn't bother to follow the links.

Re:Micheal Jackson now makes sense

[cheesedog]

Funny. Truly.

So it is with some reluctance that I have to be a wet blanket... I know a sweet little girl who suffers from the same pigmentation disease as Jackson. It is called vitiligo, and although not health-threatening, it can be somewhat difficult for children who get labeled as "different" because of the light splotches that appear on the skin, and then spread. When it grows to cover more than 50% of the body, many opt to bleach the remaining <50% so that they are at least all one tone. I believe such is the case with Jackson.

Of course, it doesn't help that Jackson is a freak in many other ways, but there are thousands and thousands of people in this country, many of them children, who suffer from this condition without being freaks in any other way.

They are lucky when compared to the diseases that afflict many other people, but the disease is relatively unknown, so I thought I'd add a few words here in their defense (but not in Jackson's -- he's on his own :)

Re:Heehee

[killthiskid]

Multiplying rough numbers from different sources accumulates a high amount of error quickly.

Agreed. It is a rough estimate, but I still think that it shows that the amount of federal money that actually makes it to NPR is low.

If NPR doesn't need any goverment money they shouldn't take any of it. It would shut up their detractors and the much-talked-about liberal private radio station would be born.

Two points: agreed... if they don't need the cash, they shouldn't take it... but I do think they need it, and I highly doubt you would find them saying otherwise, too... but when we are spending a 4 billion a month (a little over a 1000 dollars a second) on the war in Iraq, it kinda puts that small sum of money that NPR gets into perspective, doesn't it?

As for equating the theoretical fall of NPR with a theoretical rise of liberal radio, you're just attacking.

Re:NPR Funding

[_krimson_]

Forget NPR. They have an slant to the left as bad as Rush Limbaugh has to the right.

You can only believe that if you listen exclusively to Rush, and he told you so.

If you actually listened to NPR, you would realize that they are the only organization besides the BBC that is anywhere near "fair and balanced."