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Semi-Identical Twins Discovered
daftna writes in with a story from Nature about a pair of twins who are neither identical nor fraternal: they are semi-identical. Researchers discovered twins who share all of their mother's DNA but only half of their father's. Both children are chimeras — their cells are not genetically uniform, but include a mix of genes from two separate sperm cells that fertilized a single egg. This is, apparently, not as rare as one might think; but the resulting fetus is rarely viable. This report marks the first known incidence of two half-identical twins resulting from a double fertilization.
Subject says it all.
This story was already posted!! Oh, no, wait...
I understand it's mythologically correct to use the term "chimera" but whenever I hear it I always envision something else: a ghastly soulless beast with an iron heart, breathing fire out of a cavernous tooth-lined maw, crushing entire houses under gigantic feathered elephant legs; a scaled, whiplike tail kicks up ashy dust clouds as its dragged for miles behind this monstrocity.
No matter how many times I hear the biological equivalent of the term (which is never as exciting) I'm always let down. I always think some giant monster has been discovered, or someone turned into this monster, or geneticists have new clues as to the cause of this monster.
It's a bit annoying once I'm letdown but for a precious few seconds I'm always aghast in wonder.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
No I can count up to five, even with one hand busy!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
More importantly, Slashdotters may now be able to reproduce.
That could be of Biblical proportions.
And the plot for the next gang-bang porno suddenly comes into view.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199