Slashdot Mirror
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.
"
FP!
They were twins.
9th story of the day, here is the file you requested. Please follow the instructions in our last communication.
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Natalie Portman covered with hot grits
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CowboyNeal: behind the blubber
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so now when your liver commits a crime, it can be convicted seperately?
I would like to be able to decide which of the two sets of DNA are set as 'active' at a given time. That would be nice for things like murdering my wife and whoever she is sleeping with outside of our house, and then getting away with the crime.
If the DNA don't fit.. well.. uhh.. ahh shit.
"My evil twin brother did it. Honest."
I read the headline and thought... that must be a video game title. I think it's time for sleep.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
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The interesting thing is that since invitro fertilization has a much higher probability of twins (or more), chimeras will become more common.
Lancaster Gate
WONT YUO SLASHFACKS LIXOR ME DIXOR AND GOBBLE ME NUTSAX?
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What have you got against NPR? This is cruel and unusual punishment for any web server.
Isn't it Camino Twins? (The Way Twins... sort of catchy.)
This is perfect for /. It's impossible to RTFA
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
we should study this so we can give different parts of ourselves different DNA. If it is to be appropriated as a universal identification and control technology, we have to give it up if we want to remain sovereign. It is not that far away to have DNA identified radio tagging of people and, thus, near-absolute control.
No text version. NPR often doesn't publish one.
Oh ho ho, methinks they'll change their mind very shortly.
Doesn't DNA to some extent at least determine blood type? Would it be possible to have two blood types? Surely not, but as I do not have any way to listen to the link I will never know until some kind soul gives us the gist of it.
One of the X chromosomes is mostly disabled a little bit past conception (after the cells have divided a good amount though). However, which one is disabled is random at this time, which means different regions of the body derived from the original cell will have different X chromosomes disabled (into what's called a Barr body). This is all very screwy which is why females are very screwy.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Well, why not take these people into custody?
As this seems to become "common practice" for all cases that do not fit "into the plan"...
You are Sorry, and I am sorry...
And I thought images were bad when getting /.ed...
Any known birth defects/oddities arrise from this which manifest themselves in the physical sence? IE if your trying to test someone's DNA and realise they have blond hair on one half of there skull and black on the other you would know something was up.
O.J. is INNOCENT! It was my.... uhh.... other DNA...
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
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.
Wouldn't this cause complications a little more important to the individual than those listed? Like say, stuff not fitting together right? I mean, I wouldn't want to try and build a working car from half Ford Explorer parts and half Ford Focus parts.
I wonder how many people with this condition die before birth or at a very young age.
Nature published a short article on this a couple of years ago that we covered in our Journal Club meeting at my lab. The only one people detect right now are chimeric male/female twin pairs because its so easy but they had lots of cool shots under UV light where you can actally see like tiger striping of the two chimeric skin types. That was my favorite part.
Anther great aricle about Chimera twins that I was reading eariler is here. Man this stuff is really interesting. It actually says that about 8% of non-identical twins are chimera twins. That's actually pretty high.
get in touch with that.
cyphering how many babies (made of the same gooed stuff as you are) it costs for a barroll of crudeness, we've decided to cut back, a lot, on wasteful things like giving monIE to felons, to help them destroy the planet/population.
no matter. the #1 task is planet/population rescue. the lights are coming up. we're in crisis mode. you can help.
the unlimited power (such as has never been seen before) is freely available to all, with the possible exception of the aforementioned walking dead.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you.
pay no heed to the greed/fear based walking dead.
each harmed innocent carries with it a bad toll. it will be repaid by you/us. the Godless felons will not be available to make reparations.
pay attention. that's definitely affordable, plus you might develop skills which could prevent you from being misled any further by phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated misinformation.
good work so far. there's still much to be done. see you there. FUDge on robbIE.
Since NPR only provides an audio link, here are some text sites with info on chimeric twins (genetic mosaics).P ages/M/Mosaics.html
[Genetic Mosaics] http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biology
Google search for Genetic Mosaics
And for the non-biologists
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
Though the Chinese in these later days have implemented a sound and sustainable one-child policy to control their out of control population growth, this has no doubt led to the introduction of these Chimera babies.
It is certainly a travesty that these genetically malformed children are brought into the world despite their severe handicaps. Coupled with poor prenatal care in the outer provinces and you have a system that rewards parents who abort at the first sign of pregnancy and punishes those who would see their newborns brought into the world. Without the ability to screen for these handicapped children, hundreds of couples are left in dire straits as their lots are made worse by the constant care necessitated by these poor children.
Though infanticide is clearly something unpalatable and not warranted in very many situations, it may in fact be applicable in the case of these Chimera babies. So much better off would the parents be with a strong, healthy child than a sickly, potentially economically and emotionally draining child.
DNA typing for... crime investigation
Interesting phenomena in itself, but I wonder if there are people who would (or already) exploit this sort of pseudo-anonymitity. Does anyone know how far this dual-DNA goes? can individual hairs have differing DNA? or will the blood have different DNA than the hair or skin? (I am not a biologist, so please be kind regarding these questions)
-John
"The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and hoping for different results"
You can reconstitute the absorbed brother/sister through cloning the right cell?
Could he/she then sue their sibling for attempted murder?
Why not try this, turn on the radio, the story should be on again shortly after 8:30 PDT.
No need to slashdot when the show is still available over the air.
My other sig is extremely clever...
Heheh.. i wonder if mr. bruckheimer will get his scripters to put this into some episode of CSI...
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
In Greek mythology the Chimera was part lion, goat and serpent. This is why people with organ or limb transplants are sometimes referred to as a Chimera. So my question... do these people also present the same identification complications?
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.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I wish researchers would stop giving bad movie plot ideas to hack screenwriters. Now it's just a matter of time before the "Phantom Twin Killer" is playing at the local cineplex.
--If 50,000 people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
So if life begins with fertilization, as many fundamentalists believe, does this means that this women should be guilty of murder of an "unborn person"?
Where's "-1, Evil"?
You know the people I'm talking about, the ones whose bodies are somehow demented and just don't seem to fit together. Torso too big for the legs,legs too long for the torso, head too big, and so on.
Probably not, but there's got to be an explanation for this phenomena.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you cat fanatics? I've been sitting here on my sofa in front of a cat (a sealpoint siamese) for about 20 minutes now while attempting to get it's attention away from a bug on the floor. 20 minutes. At home, with my labrador cross, which by all standards should be a lot dumber than this cat, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this attention seeking attempt, my children's attention is also held by the cat. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even trying to get the remote from my partner fails.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while dealing with other cats, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a cat that fetches as much as it's canine counterpart, despite the cat's faster ambulatory system. My terrier with one ingrown toenail runs consistently faster than this siamese at times, as the cat is often completely asleep. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the cat is a superior animal.
Cat addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a cat over other faster, cheaper, more affectionate animals.
When I heard the story this morning, I thought of bone marrow transplants. In that case, aren't you getting someone else's blood-generating cells? And wouldn't your blood cells then contain someone else's DNA?
It seems like they'd make a Law & Order or CSI episode from this: a career criminal arranges to get a bone marrow transplant from someone whose DNA is known to authorities, but who hasn't yet been apprehended (ooh, big word!). Then, the real bad guy can leave all the blood he wants at the crime scene, and never worry about being tracked.
Of course, the side effects would probably make a lifestyle of violent crime a bit more difficult than, say, the odd embezzlement here and there.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
There's an organizitaion called the The Innocence Project headed by Barry Scheck which prides itself on freeing prisoners who didn't have the technology of DNA testing avaible to them during their trials.
In light of this article, I wonder how many guilty people have been set free. I'm sure there are guilty parties that proclaim their innocence and see no harm or foul in having the DNA testing done by said non profit organization, in hopes of some fluke in their favor.
It's just his white Chimera brother finally coming out after all these years.
This is a CSI episode waiting to happen.
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
Internet radio, and internet communication in general, is initiated at the convience of you and me, the people communicating.
The sooner media companies realize that most of their listeners / consumers use that method, the sooner spectrum prices will come down. When that happens, more spectrum will be freed up for real uses -- i.e., whatever we want at the moment, as it will all be wireless internet.
Please don't feed the dinosaurs.
The human genome isn't like the automarket...That is you're still building 1 car, but all the parts can be slightly different, but come from 1 supplier. After all, in a normal diploid animal (ie. humans) half of the chromosome content is from the mother, the other half from the father. As far as liver, heart, skin, etc. all working together, there is no problem with this.
There is a problem though with the immune system. Since each organism's cells contain a unique combination of cell surface receptors that let's their body know the difference between "self" and a bug or virus, then depending which copy of DNA founded the cells of the thymus (where "self" is first determined), a chimera's immune system could see cells with the other DNA set as foreign - causing a massive systemic allergic reaction. The good news is that chimeras with this problem would spontaneously abort within the first few months of the pregnancy, so if a chimeric human is born, they probably don't have to worry to much about such genetic mismatches.
"Nokia is not a country, it's the capital of Finland!" -Moderated "Informative". Yeesh.
two sets of dna produce two different sets of oragn, tissue, cell, antigens that identify these parts as belonging to body..
Chimera embryo would not survie due too much body rejection of the parts of body that has the different dna..
The only case where thsi cannot happen and regualr occurs is the difference between human cell dan..or human genome nuclear and mitochrondia dna which produce no antigens but is diferent from the nuclear dna in that is the mother inherited mitochroindia dna form mother of the offspring..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Dr. Jeckle(sp?) and Mr. Hyde isn't too far fetched after all. The "formula" Jeckle drinks to become Hyde simple turns on the alternate DNA sequence.
--Im an oven mitt, not an engineer! (SLArbys Radio Commercial)
Not a single reply by somebody that has actaully listened to the story. Ah, it appears NPR is too good for slashdot click-n-spew.
But here is an artists sketch of what one of these Chimera twins might look like.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The Y chromosome is pretty screwy in its own right.
I've been told that the propensity to produce fraternal twins is an inherited trait, unlike identical twins. Is this Chimera twin state also inherited, or is it a random mutation?
where do YOU keep Your extra chromosome?? In your Pocket? Under your Pillow? In your glovebox?
Mr. XYY
I realize you're making a joke, but Chimera's would have different DNA in different parts of the body. A swab from the mouth might have different DNA then a blood sample. However, if there was a match, this would still indicate that the person who gave the sample and the sample found at the scene were almost certainly the same person.
A Chimera would create a false negative, because the DNA extracted from the cells in the mouth would not match the DNA of the blood at the scene.
It might be a best practice to test the same type of cells when doing a DNA test(gross for rape cases), especially considering that no one knows how many chimerae there are out there(Especially since each Chimera hides an occurence of fraternal twins, so our estimates on the frequency of fraternal twins are now less accurate).
My other sig is extremely clever...
Sometimes somebody actually posts something that deserves +5 funny.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Apparently the brain got the bad half (thank god she can't read my /. log)
Am I the only one who read the title and thought, "Finally! All this messing with genes has produced something useful, a fire-breathing Chimera with a lion's head and a goat's body"? On a more serious note, the nature article in a similiar vein is here.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
now that i know what a chimera is, it makes the star destroyer of the same name seem less bad-ass. oh well.
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
Wouldn't the body be compatible with boths sets of dna? Otherwise how would the current bodyparts communicate with eachother? That would mean Chimera Twins will have a broader range of organs to choose from.
If not the solution would be to extract dna from the part that needs to be replaced
No text version. NPR often doesn't publish one.
Doesn't that go against Section 508 standards for tax-funded institutions? Like NPR cares about that; they don't let their 501(c)3 status interfere with their journalism.
More common is CALICO-CAT style DNA in famale mammal whereby two sets of dna alternate in their expression in the animal in large regions of cells from when the embryo is first forming.
in a calico cat it creates a semi-infertile female with large splotches of color.
In a human female it creates the magical ability for a left eye retina to sometimes have a different set of color cones than the right eye....
this then gives the chimera female ULTRA-VISION !!!!
She is able to see things we cannot with our measly 3 color cones and one-hue rods.
In fact these freaks are able to see astoundingly minute differences in shading and color.
A typical car would have off-color panels or trim to them, any repaired home would have non-matching paint.
Manking typically can create double-hybrids of chromosomes in most of the fruits and vegetables we eat (larger, firmer, typically less tasty though)
but double and wuad hybrids are not the only odd thing about dna. Eons ago, i think i read the banana ended up with 3 sets of chromosomes or something like that. (not the plantain, the nromal banana). It is highly resistant to tampering by cultivation and breeding. It is the worls only "perfect" fruit because the banana was the banana over 500 hundred years ago, unchanged. No other fruit from 500 years ago would be tasty to today's spoiled pallete.
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.
Something along the lines of "cats, although they are more advanced upstairs, they are so independant they dont give a crap about you, theyll just find a home elsewhere, they're elite animals indeed, dogs, while less advanced, are loyal and dependant of their owner/master, some people suppose that dog people need the assurance a dog supposedly gives you, being the "emotionally shallow" animal the dog, supposedly, is."
When Focker (Stiller) claims that he's more of a dog-person, a disgruntled Jack (DeNiro) asks, "So you prefer an emotionally shallow animal, do you?"
MORTAR COMBAT!
I had always heard that a person that has eyes of different colors is really a chimeral twin.
...that lone white glove.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Now does that mean that I can commit a crime and not be caught?
I believe in God (and love).
Here is a pretty freaky story of a boy who seems to have assumed his twin in the womb. No one knew until when,at age seven, he had a stomach ache and surgeons removed his brother.
Technically, then, these people are actually two people rolled into one. They should get to vote twice at the voting booth, and should pay double to get into the movies.
In addition, their Slashdot posts should be modded up or down at double the normal amount.
While I don't know for sure if I am a chimera, I was born with XX/XY sex chromosomes, something I only found out in my early 20s.
For many of us born this way we don't appear to be completely male or female and like most I was surgically "repaired" very soon after birth. This means I had what appeared to be testicles removed, testicles which MAY have permitted me to have children one day. Part of my body was stolen because I looked different. I was raised female, always felt that didn't quite fit, and it took me a lot of messing through courts to obtain my birth records. As I am now I have to settle with knowing where I fit originally, why I am like I am, and can accept living as a mostly normal female. By nature however, I was born part male part female. That's me. The chance to live and develop naturally was stolen from me.
It's fucked. Science continues to find so many variations on human development but society so often manages to force decisions on people. How odd that I was considered unnatural enough when I was born that doctors decided surgery was the only acceptable option, when my birth and very existence is just one more facet of nature.
For more info on how intersexed kids (chimeric or any other variation) are treated, see isna.org
Regarding organ rejection: rejection is a "trained" response. Fetuses/embryos can recieve organs without fear of rejection, because the immune response is not trained against the offending organ. That's why some people can have two different blood types: they recieved some blood of a different blood type before they were born, and their immune system adapted to this other type of blood and accepted it as part of the body. That's why chimeras can exist.
I am legion.
--- Ban humanity.
That's Jekyll ;) Here's the book for those interested.
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
This link has some good information on Chimeras. Including a discussion of the lady featured in NPR.
g yP ages/M/Mosaics.html
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biolo
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Could it be possible that this is evolution taking over and protecting us from the various different tracking measures that will one day soon be put in place?
I know it sounds paranoid. It's really just dumb speculation. But, what if...
boy was I wrong.
Normal male = Xy (any extra "X" are abnormal, but even a XXXXy is still male - all but one X gets deactivated - but usually has serious medical problems). Normal female = XX (extra "X"s do not create supermodels, it creates medical problems)
Take a look at any calico or tortoise shell cat. What you are seeing is the result of random deactivation of one of the X chromosome early in the development of the embryo, and the random appearance of the colors (black or orange) on that chromosome. Humans have few easily testable traits that are testible for chimerism: one blood group is all I can think of at the moment, that "lives" on the X chromosome.
For calico or tortie males (yes, they exist, and no they are not valuable) the division between the colors is a good indicator of how badly screwed up their sex chromosomes are. A male that is mostly orange with one small black patch probably acts like a tomcat and will show very few cells of the XXY pattern, and might even have that abnormality limited to that spot. One that is well-mottled with black and orange is probably not interested in breeding and will show mnay more abnormal XXY cells.
In order to test this for the possibility to screw up DNA identification, they could start by testing the known chimeras - cats.
She could have been a nice Chimera of Brundlefly/Davis/Foetus! Just think of the sequels, oh wait...
Any court appointed expert worth his salt will give the jury a detailed, precise p-value for the probability that the DNA came from some other person. A simple t-test is all that is needed for this.
Given the known variability of the population of DNA, it is not uncommon to have a p-value of 1E-8. That means there's a 1 in 100,000,000 chance that someone else committed the crime. In other words, there's about 3 people in the U.S. who match that DNA. Reasonable doubt? Your call.
Now admittedly, if you have p-values of anything less that 1E-3 or 4 being admitted into court, you should laugh the "expert" out of the courtroom.
Could it be that bisexuals have part homosexual genes and part heterosexual genes? I remember reading an article in Discover magazine that noted that fraternal twins have a higher incidence of bisexuality than identical twins and the population as a whole.
Gee - either I have to load up the sucky real media player to hear it, or I have to agree to let MS onto my system any thime they want via the EULA for windows media player nine.
Guess I won't be listening to NPR on the web anytime soon.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
My other sig is extremely clever...
The solution to this problem is obvious.
Simply require id chip implants at birth.
Problem solved.
Nothing else left to discuss here.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I've watched enough CSI to know that they could figure out that the two different DNA's were similar enough to do a little more snooping. I imagine it would look at first like it was a close relative.
Switching to Linux can be an adventure!
Discussing a woman found to be a chimera, an article on Mosaics found that: Since they don't simply state that she is incapable of producing t-cells, then there may be something in there to allow for selectively suppressing an immunoresponse (sp?) that could be valuable.
I think I oughta patent it now before someone with the ability to actually find it does.
Does anybody else here see someone with two sets of dna becoming a supercriminal? I know I would.
I did NOT learn everything I need to know in kindergarten.
These people have two sets of DNA, but the other set comes from their fraternal twin... at worst, the other set of DNA is as closely related to them as a brother or sister. And in all cases, they would still have half of their DNA from their mother, and half from the father -- just like anyone else. It wouldn't seem that this would cause much of a problem in terms of body part mismatch, since the situation is not that much different from a normal single baby.
What we really need is a ten day waiting period and a background check before you can buy a congressman.
Or what?
Are these "chimeras" then one or two persons? Should they have two votes? Can one go to hell and the other to heaven?
Pro-lifers may have good arguments against abortion (Considered off-topic in this thread) but this one just weakened.
Evolution favors people who have more children. It doesn't protect us from governement tracking or anticipate problems.
Reading the post but refusing to listen to the audio clip got me interested in searching Google for all of this. I came across one link in particular, which is very interesting:
Genetic Mosaics
The writer discusesses a tetraparental mouse and a tetragametic human.
In a sense a non-chimeras already have different sets of DNA in different body parts. The DNA expresses differently in a liver cell vs. skin or some other cell type. These differences appear to be controlled epigenetically: not in the DNA sequence itself, but in the run-time environment particular to any given cell type. Just because these differences are epigenetic, doesn't mean they are not structural and important.
DNA Methylation and chromatin structure appear to control the epigenetic regulation of the DNA. These issues appear the be the reason behind cloning problems, where taking DNA expressing run-time environment appropriate for an adult cell doesn't always work in a embryo.
Why do you do that? Why you must tell us that you are atheist? Do you feel uncomfortable about it and therefore look for our sympathy or what is the reason you specifically needed to tell us that?
I believe in God.
I hope you will find Jesus and you don't have to go to hell when you die. Satan is for real. I've witnessed it and it was scary as hell.
Thanks for the advice, Herr Himmler ;)
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
IANAL, but IUTWIBB ... I used to work in blood banks doing crossmatches. A small number of people have two different ABO blood types. They are not "AB", they have some red blood cells that are pure "A" and some that are pure "B" and that is violating Mendelian genetics. The same mechanism that creates this could easily create other "blood chimeras" with the other several hundred lesser-known blood types. And a third mechanism (sex chromosome abnormalities) can create a kind of blood chimera that has nothing to do with twins.
Apparently, most of these blood chimera individuals shared a blood supply with a non-identical twin before birth (the cells that make blood and populate your bone marrow float around the fetal blood supply while waiting for bones to develop to give them a place to settle, and the placentas and their blood vessels can merge without producing conjoined twins). In some cases, people are unaware that they had a twin because he or she died early in gestation and was spontaneously aborted (or disintegrated by the mother's defense mechanisms, or walled off in the mother or living twin). They show up in the National Enquirer when someone is operated on for a cyst and it has bits of the encysted twin in it.
As many as 8% of non-identical twins may have chimeric blood. Some people are microchimeric--they have a small amount of blood of a different type in their system that has persisted from a blood transfusion or passed across the placental barrier from their mother before birth.
"Blood chimerism" does NOT cause a problem for the person with the chimerism as far as receiving blood in a transfusion ... they will tolerate any phenotype they possess if you transfuse it - they have had it since they were fetuses and it is "self" in the immunological sense of the word.
It can, however, be hell on blood banks trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with the blood during the initial typing and screening in a transfusion where the blood chimera is the donor. The potential recipient is not at risk because the tech says &^$^$#%@!!!, sets the donor unit back in the frig with a "do not use" note and sends it off to a research lab to find out what's going on. That's how you usually find blood chimeras and new blood types ... anomalous results in what should be a routine crossmatch.
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.
I find your biological comments interesting but I have to say that if you are going to use a latin tag as your sig, you might consider running your note through a spell-checker. Sudden discoveries like 'Occures' works hard to spoil the effect.
This, by the way, is by no means a flame. I like your note. It makes me want to know more.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
I wonder if this would be one thing that produces a gay/lesbian individual?
Me and my brother was born with a merged placenta. My mother tells us how when we were conceived we were to separate eggs but that we were so close to being alike that our placentas merged so we were born like identical twins. Where can I find more research on this? Any slashdotters know?
Cool! I found a picture of those striped mice. Some more pictures:
Closeup before eyes are formed.
In-vitro development in the lab.
Displaying remarkable inteligence as they swarm and are about to devour their much-bigger and unsuspecting prey (apparently striped mice are carnivorous)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I, for one, welcome our chimeric overlords...
Attend to the fact that if one of a set of fraternal twins dies ('blighted ovum' might be the term used) ..
then it could have 'died' because of assimilation of its DNA into the 'surviving twin' , and there would therefore be NO evidence that the resulting singleton birth ever was one of a pair
So , any search for the prevelance of thi Chimera condition must include analysis of ALL births, not just obvious fraternal twins.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
In females, one of the X chromosomes becomes a barr body, and the other one is used for things like mitochondria. Because it's random which is used, you can get patches of different chromosomes being used in different areas, giving rise to things to things like calico patterned cats (almost always female), slightly different skin in different areas of the body, and so on..
(I think.. I'm not a biologist)
http://yersex.tilegarden.com/
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Oh, can't I?
I guess this will accelerate the need for IPv6, since Chimeric Twins will needs twice as many IP addresses. Sure, they can use NAT, but what is the point to having the extra DNA if you can't independantly address it.
BTW, human chimeras and human-monkey hybrid chimeras are being produced in laboratories for research purposes.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020429/020429-13.html
Marques Johansson
But should still be easy to clone. Just use "cp".
Yes, mod me off-topic. See if I care.
I don't need a signature.
From NPR's FAQ about transcripts.
When are transcripts available?
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By 9 p.m. ET on the day the show airs
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By 9 p.m ET on the day the show airs
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According the recnt book "The X Chromosome" , the second "X" chromosome in females is 95% deactivated because it is redundant. These become "Barr bodies" which float about independently of the other DNA. An X chromosome is contributed from the mother and father to a female child. In human females, either can be deactivated in a cell. (In other species, sometimes one parental X is only deactivated.)
It is suggested that the higher incidence of auto-immune conditions in females, e.g. lupus, chronic fatigue, etc. may be the immune system reacting againts one of the parental X. (The are alternative hypotheses for auto-immune problems.)
Humans can exist with as few as one X and no Y, up to three or four X's, due the deactivations of the extras X's. Most other chromosome miscounts cause miscarriages. X/Y miscounts happen about one in every 300 births.
With all that "lack of funding" it is interesting how the top 3 people at WQED in Pittsburgh can be pulling down over $400K combined. When that came out in the local scandal sheet a few years ago, I quit contributing to their pledge drives.
As far as a balanced news coverage.... Forget NPR. They have an slant to the left as bad as Rush Limbaugh has to the right. Their accuracy in reporting leaves a lot to be desired also.
I believe that as long as the Gov't supports them in any way, they should be held accountable for unbiased, accurate reporting of events.
But then again, in a perfect world like that, Apple, Microsoft, SCO, IBM and Sun would all be looking out for the customer's best interest!
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.
that damn browser pronunciation problem.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
So that's a way to know the cat's female too?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
For these Chimera's, masturbation is incest?
More often than not, things don't go right.
Everyone has heard of Downs syndrome, when a child has an "extra" chromosome. Well, think of having twenty three extra pairs.
I am a fraternal twin, and I don't know if I am a chimera or not, but my wife and I have had trouble with a similar situation of too much DNA. Last year, we had a molar pregnancy.
"What is that?" you may ask. A molar pregnancy happens when an egg is fertilized, but no baby is formed. It happens when the egg "looses" the genetic information from the mother (complete molar), or has three sets of chromosomes (69 total, partial molar). Molar pregnancies are about 1 in 1500 births, with 98% of those being the complete type.
Either way, it is a horrific experience, and should be considered cancerous. The mother's hormone levels will climb to dangerous levels as the mass of cells that should have been an embryo rapidly grow and divide inside the womb. She will become extremely pregnant, without a child, and morning sickness becomes a 24 hour a day nightmare. Relief only comes with complete removal of all molar tissue. After this, the mother has to be monitored and be "pregnancy free" for a year, to tell if any of the molar tissue has become cancerous.
Our case was a partial molar. If things would have gone right, we would now have a set of identical twins, but it didn't. DNA is a funny and powerful thing and too much is never good.
-- Len
THis is a nosy queston, so feel free to tell me to go to hell, but which do you feel you should have been? A man, a woman, or somewhat a mix of both?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Especially with one of those Chimera dudes. Oh man, that's gotta be cool, it would be like a threesome, wouldn't it?
Wow, can you imagine the fun on one of those idiotic Paternity Test TV shows when they bring the results? "Uhmm, you're both the father!" Or introductions? "I'd like you to meet my liver's dad, and this is the dad of the rest of me..." (Answer that Miss Manners!)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
So if the RIAA comes after me can I claim that it wasn't me who downloaded all those files onto my computer...
This mucks up the whole crime lab and paternity mess quite a bit. What if one of a pair of twins is a chimera, part identical twin and part not (not looking identical)? With triplets and quadruplets ... the combinatorics might be insane. A female twin with a long lost male brother being convicted of rape on DNA evidence?
if one had 2 blood types could they give themselves aids?
What about triplets then? If it's possible to have a Chimera twin, I don't see a reason why triplets wouldn't be possible too. "Well sir, according to our DNA tests, you're an entire family on your own."
The appallingly narrowminded fundementalist religious belief patterns are not the only way(s) of believing in god.
My experience [1] leads me to affirm "I believe in god [2]", but your parody of the fundementalist parody of religious belief doesn't match up with my belief patterns.
[1] Yes rational arguments come in to it as well, but I'd guess that for 99% of people, it's environmental and experiential factors that dominate.
[2] Most of the time. (But that's a different fish kettle.)
Actually, there aren't any immune system problems. The knowledge of which protiens are "other" and which are "us" isn't stricktly geneticly encoded, so the immune cells grow up recognizing all the protiens that the person's body produces. I expect that massibly chimeric (hundreds of genetic sources) organisms might run into problems as the number of protiens recognized as "self" greatly exceeds normal, and might grow to encompass all the protiens produced by some random disease (at which point the organism is f***ed) but there don't seem to be any problems for two part chimeras.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
I heard this article this morning, it was amazing. The woman was shocked to hear that she couldn't possibly be the mother of the children she distinctly remembered giving birth to. They tested the father as well, and it was clear that he was indeed the father -- so it wasn't a case of kids being switched at birth. It took quite a while for them to determine that she was a chimera. [That's KY-mer-a, I had always pronounced it SHIM-er-a].
:)
She was somewhat worried that her kids wouldn't think of her as her mother, but now that she understands it better she sees that she's both the mother and aunt of her kids.
The article said that scientists make chimeras of other animals all the time, and sometimes even between one species and another. There are 'geeps' which are chimeras of goats and sheep, for example.
As other people mention, they have found larger percentages of chimeras in in vitro conceived children; which makes sense because they usually implant multiple embryos.
Anyway, it's one of those articles that makes NPR worthwhile
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Did anybody else here, upon learning of Chimeras, immdediatly think of the Daggers in Seaquest?
I mean, they've got the striped skin, they don't breed true, they're a perfect example of what a human chimera with strongly disparate genetic sources would look like. Of course, natural chimeras get all they're genes from the same set, and from only two sources too, so they don't look as interesting, but ain't-it-cool?
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
This sounds like a really cheesy end-boss to an 80s video game.
I used Chimera on my mac for a while, but mozilla is better.
Mosaics aren't Chimeras.
However, before the launch of Safari, I was using Chimera, a descendent of Mosaic.
Told ya. Worst joke evar.
My other computer is your Windows box
Where do you think this planet has come from? TELL ME THAT! All the planets in the sky and the sun??? WHERE DID THEY COME FROM??? Is that just imagination??? WHO DESIGNED HUMAN BRAINS??? what??? THINK BEFORE YOU TALK!!!
When I use my left hand it feels like someone else!!! Coincidence, I think not.
[ Don't reply to this ]
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu... SION! ...HAAAAAAAA!!!
Only... BEFORE birth.
.unsigged
I always wondered what was up with David Bowie's eyes.
Wait! Why do they limit discussion of this phenomenon to just the merging of fraternal twins? Why, I could be the product of a merger between myself and my own identical twin. And, the implications of that are... uh... well, something.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Actually, blood types of a baby can be incommpatible with mom. They don't share the bloodstream, they have the placenta as a nutrient exchange interface that theoretically should swap no blood. Think about it: Mother is Ao - A from one parent, o from the other - which makes her blood type A, and the father is, say Bo, B from one parent and o from the other. An o sperm could fertilize and o egg, creating a oo genotype, which would be blood type O - this child would be killed if mom's blood got into his body. Many other crosses also generate incompatible mother/baby blood types in one direction or the other.
There is a good picture of Lobster which displays this caught in Nova Scotia there are also lobsters that are blue and red like a checkerboard (only four squares), but I couldn't find photos of them so easily
I tried searching some info on the web about Chimeras but apart from the same definitions, theres nothing.
I'm curious, are there any obvious signs a person is heavily a chimera as in Downs Syndrome or Autism? What are the DNA percentages.... I suspect theyre around 1% outside DNA for bone marrows and the like, is there a chimera person with more than 30% outside DNA? Is there someone with chimera in his brain and what are the syndromes?
Lastly, has there ever been siamese twins who are not identical... ie 50% chimera?
So little is known...
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Thanks... this is what I was actually looking for, but kept running into those damn chocolate mice. parent's link. Too bad it's only one "stripe", but still neat.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
> if one had 2 blood types could they give themselves aids?
I feel stupid that I have to ask if you are serious.
I resemble that remark!
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
If two sets of DNA in one person is possible then presumably more are possible. Of course the probability of having three sets of DNA is likely to be much less than the probability of having two sets of DNA. And of course the probability of having four sets of DNA is likely to be much less than having three sets of DNA. I wonder if there is any theoretical limit to the number of sets of DNA a single person could have?
Joe Dirt. Quite a classic. *cough cough*
This brings up some interesting questions. First off, what are the implications for the present organ donation system? The radio story talks about a women who discovered her condition when she needed a kidney, and her own children were tested as incompatable. It turns out that they inherited genes from one of her sets and that was not the genome responsible for her blood supply. But what about the other possibility. I need a kidney, my sister tests as a viable donor, but it turns out her kidney has a different genome then the one that tested positive for a match. The kidney gets transplanted and my body rejects it. How often does this happen in real life?
Also, is anyone studying the way the body's immune system handles having two omnipresent genomes? What implications, if any, does this have for the study of drugs that could help lower the threat of organ rejection?
Does anyone know the answers to these questions, and if not, is anyone looking into them?
So I was reading this chimera twins story...
What? You want me to give away the ending?
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
15%? Yeah right. Tell that to the three accidents my wife and I are raising.
... THEY WEREN'T KIDDING!!
Hey people. The rhythm method? Early withdrawal? When they said back in school that those methods don't work
[Actually I'm kidding. Only two were accidents. One was actually planned. But, of course, all are loved.]
Your evil chimera twin inside you owns you
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
Yeah, that's all we need. You look at a girl, and you're like "damn! you're fine", then she turns and you see she has her sister's ass...
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
This topic of calico cats was discussed in a +0 rated anonymous post BEFORE your +5 rated post.
g yP ages/M/Mosaics.html
Why was yours not marked redundant, or at least the other post modded to +1 informative or higher?
because no one MODS posts anymore from anonymous sources... thoughat times some of the most amazing posts were from anonymous sources on slashdot.
but this post was not the first to discuss calico cats, though it was well written and was informative.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/Biolo
is a good link on true FULL CHROMOSONAL SET chimeras in humans
Yahoo!
My wife had an interesting idea, Could it be possible that transgenderism is caused by a female (or male) twin stuck in the others body? A simple sample or two of DNA from the brain and... um.. genitals would let you know if transgendered people are in fact chimeras.
meh
Others, like the one below, state that initial tests that cleared him were "errors".
The Rostov Ripper
This link says:
Apparently HBO made a movie, Citizen X about this case. I haven't seen it, so I don't know how it deals with the DNA aspect.
If the organs or systems of one chromosome set fails for whatever reason, the other one automatically takes over.
*duck*
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
This is unlikely to occur without active medical intervention, but in theory you could get twins who are genetically 'unrelated' by taking the two halves of each parental zygote (XX and xy) and cross-fertilizing them (Xx and Xy). I am not a geneticist, and this came originally from an offhand comment by a character in a Robert Heinlein story.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=6665 839&sid=74320 for the curious.
Also, you have to depend on your post being seen by someone who understands what you are saying. And here is your third obstacle:
It would also help if your story had some scientific accuracy to it, not tabloid-style hyperbole.
It was a joke, idiot. And it was in his sig, it wasn't part of the message.
Read it again: "Thank god I'm atheist". Why would an atheist be thanking god? Because it's a joke.
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not really out to get you.
TELL ME WHY THEY ARE OUT TO GET HIM!!!!!
Thank God I'm paranoid!
For a fine exposition on the legal implications, in the old-science view, I'd recommend the Mark Twain novel _Pudd'nhead_Wilson_ It's of some interest, too, to the enthusiasts who are trying to get DNA data on all felons, and would like to get it on all citizens and visitors as well. They can't claim to have a magic bullet anymore (but the more important issue, for crime solving, is whether there'd be any false positive matches, and twins are the big issue there).
Mmmmmm.... Chimera Twin.....
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.