Hey everybody, welcome back to explain that come five podcast where we take the questions you always wanted to ask and talk about them in a way that's easy to understand We are your hosts. I'm Tim and I'm Kevin. So Kevin today We've got a fascinating topic and that is the topic of twins. Why don't we start with this question?
It comes up from time to time. Why do twins have different fingerprints? Oh, right? Well, Tim, you're actually talking about identical twins here, right?
Ah, that's right. We should explain that one first. So what are the different types of twins? Oh, yes So they're the most common type of twins are the three fraternal types So this means that the mother's ovaries actually released two eggs instead of one and both became fertilized And the three types of fraternal twins are male male male female and also female female I say now the next most common type of twin is something called identical twinning Which is what you were originally referring to so this occurs when one egg becomes fertilized But then it splits into two embryos and the resulting twins thus share the exact same genes the exact same DNA and so are considered identical and Finally, there's actually another category which people don't talk about that much.
These are the very rare half twins and these occur when two Different sperm enter one egg and egg splits and then one sperm fertilizes one party egg and another sperm fertilizes the other part So this means both embryos will have genes from the same egg But each one will have genes from only the one sperm actually fertilized it plus concept of called half twins I see now back to my original question for identical twins if they have the same DNA then why are they think of Prince different? Oh, that's a really good question So it's a slightly common misconception about DNA here your DNA does not contain enough information to describe every single cell and how they should exactly be laid out What it contains are patterns so for instance your skin is actually created by a pattern Which says you know turn the outer layer of stem cells into skin cells and have them grow until they are so-and-so Open a thick the cells themselves grow in let's say semi-random ways as long as they obey the general pattern the worlds and rings on your finger pads Are a great example of this so the pattern of the finger is dictated by which cells divided and when and where they're supposed to be So with the exact same DNA you will end up with a pretty different skin pattern every time This is true for identical twins, but it also true for clones, you know Assuming we had a technology to create them even if you grew two clones in the exact same identical tanks the small bits of random chance Due to that you know when arranging the cells during the development process would give them different fingerprints So what you're saying Kevin is that it's not your rather than nature in the case of fingerprints Oh, yeah Yeah, you could definitely say that and along those lines, you know twins have been a part of some incredible scientific experiments throughout history It was in 1746 where a Swedish king tried to prove that coffee was unhealthy by having one man drink large amounts of coffee And that's identical twins drink the same amount of tea every day for the rest of their lives Oh, what happened? Well both twins actually outlived the doctors in charge of the experiment and even the king himself So with exactly the same DNA in identical twins then if identical twins have kids with another set of identical twins are they offspring technically brothers and sisters? Oh, yes I think this has actually happened once and that is correct the offspring they are genetically siblings as well as socially cousins Now here's another one so if two twin brothers are disputing who is the father of a child can science determine?
Who is the real one? Oh wow? That's a that's a bit of a tough one So based on what we've just discussed actually know but in recent years that happens some advanced techniques developed I might be able to try to tell the difference but that said even if it is possible it will be expensive and not widely available Well that kind of opens up possibilities for interesting criminal and paternal situations Oh, yes Yes, so in I think 2009 there were these identical twins Hassan and Abbas Oh who are suspects in a six point eight million dollar jewelry heist now the DNA imagine a twins was found But they had to be released citing that we can deduce that at least one of the brothers took part in crime It has not been possible to determine which one hey believe that that is pretty shocking But when you think about it having a twin does open up doors to all sorts of opportunities like that since there's two of you Oh, yes all sorts of opportunities I can remember some TV show when I was younger where you know twins which places to take a test right? You know there were these twin brothers who ran an ultra marathon in South Africa where they actually switched places in the toilet in the middle The race so the first brother actually drove ahead while his twin ran rejoining the races which in places ahead finishing ninth overall Winning six thousand South African Rand which is like about four hundred US dollars Wow, how did they catch them kind of seems smart to finish at ninth rather than first?
I thought so too, but actually here a keen-eyed journalist noticed the two order watches on opposite hands in different pictures Now why are there a lot of twins in Hollywood? Oh, there's actually a pretty good reason for this So there's this 15 day old age requirement for them to work and a premature babies instead of falter babies Are usually casted as they look like a newborn yet are able to meet that minimum age requirement So twins and triplets here are preferred as the babies tend to be a bit smaller and you know filming hours can be prolonged And they can always sub in one if the other one is you know not in a good mood or something now twins and humans are relatively rare But with animals they have them all the time. Why is that? Yes, so what happens here is that humans only release one egg at a time while other animals release multiple eggs at the same time We're resulting in those multiple births, you know from a evolution point of view It also makes a lot of sense human babies have a huge head making birth very difficult So before modern medicine the maternal mortality, you know dying while getting birth was pretty high and that's just for you having one baby Do you remember when Apple first launched face ID to unlock iPhones?
Yeah, so with twins how does face scanning behave then in that case? Oh, right So often it does will work But not always because like I said identical twins don't always look like look as that much alike This is especially true if you are taking precise measurements of the face and then comparing them Which is what face it does So when face ID launched lots of people actually did a bunch of twin test experiments and according to a University of Texas study About 32 out of a thousand people are twins. However, the rate of four identical twins is only 3.5 per 1000 births Ah, very interesting. Do you learn something new if you did send us an email?
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