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.

Sounds like mom was a busy girl.

[alcmaeon]

Subject says it all.

DUP!!

[dustball23]

This story was already posted!! Oh, no, wait...

Re:Sounds like mom was a busy girl.

[maxume]

Problems with your sperm count? (lots of guys have more than, ya know, one. Harr).

They need a different term besides "Chimera"

[The-Bus]

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.

Re: DUP!!

[Black Parrot]

We don't get dupes, we get semi-identical posts.

No more jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that should cock up the old joke about the blonde who gave birth to twins and wanted to know who the father of the other one was.

No problem

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Problems with your sperm count?

No I can count up to five, even with one hand busy!

Re: DUP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't get duplicates, we get semi-identical posts.

Re:Sounds like mom was a busy girl.

[Anonymous Coward]

Inconceivable!

Re:Discovery Health "I'm my own twin"

[Starburnt]

More importantly, Slashdotters may now be able to reproduce.

That could be of Biblical proportions.

Re:wow, that must be embarassing

[The One and Only]

Maybe some women should try for this to achieve notoriety and advance the cause of science...

And the plot for the next gang-bang porno suddenly comes into view.

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Five? Pathetic. I can do up to 31!

Re:Evil Twin!

[ajlitt]

Is that also the gene for compulsive goatee growing?

Re:On intersexuality

[Knux]

First of all, as a disclaimer, I'm not intersexual myself, but I'm interested in inter- and transsexuality

You mean like watching bizzar porn hu?
Pervert...