Amazing Twins

This is really true. The parents are both bi-racial from black fathers and white mothers

Entire story is here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/li...e_id=377839&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

 

Wow that is crazy. Science and genetics works in strange strange ways. They are a beautiful couple and the babies are pretty too. I wonder just how something like that can happen...

 

FLIP! :shock:

 

That is truly amazing.

 

:smt038 It's been done before, but I never get tired of it.

 

Scientists say that as the parents are both bi-racial, the white baby inherited all the white genes from both families, and the black baby got all the black genes from both families. It happened 13 years ago....twin boys, one black, one white from a white mother and black father.

Beautiful family

 

It also happened around the time I was born (mid to late 80's) I think...saw it in JET magazine...two British parents (what is it with those Brits and their mixed babies)...one parent was a WM the other was a BW....the twins were fraternal with the boy being "white" and the girl being "black"....but the differences were quite profound as the "black" baby could easily "pass" for being black...no one would automatically guess she was biracial, and the white baby was as white as the baby shown above.

 

I have to disagree with what the scientists say above as it is over simplistic. The "black" baby girl looks like any baby would have looked born to that couple under normal circumstances. If she were a single child, no one would have thought twice about it as she has similar features as the parents (i.e., bi-racial type features). If they have more children, chances are that the children will look like the "black" twin in skin tone and hair texture.

In other words, if the "black" twin had inherited *ALL* black genes (i.e., 100% African looking) as the scientists said, then she would have been much darker with kinkier hair which she is not.

The anomaly (?) is solely in the "white" twin in that she inherited blond hair and lighter (white) skin which as rare in this case.

 

Nellie, I can understand your logic. However, the scientists proposal is quite plausible. You said if the baby inherited 100% of the black genes, then she should be darker and have more curly hair.

That statement is somewhat inaccurate because your statement rests on the assumption that "black" consists of a single color gradient and hair texture. When indeed, the possibilities are endless. My brother and mother are much lighter than the darker twin and I know for a fact that there hasn't been any significant racial mixing in my nuclear family (we have family trees and such)


That being said, the genes being considered by the scientist are only the genes responsible for skin tone, hair color and such. The other more relevant genes were indeed inherited from both parents. In the case of mitochondrial DNA (generally inherited from mothers) you can even expect both babies to have their white grandmother's mt. DNA (if their grandmother was a white woman)

I am not saying your hypothesis is invalid. I just wanted to say that what they stated is very possible and is probably the case since geneticists can easily analyze these sort of things! In other words, geneticists are too smart to base their publications on "what the girls look like". I would expect that they have analyzed DNA samples, calculated gene frequencies and performed other sort of standard procedures. It is after all geneticists that proved to the world that race is not really a biological concept.

 

I would expect that they would have done some analysis as well, but in many cases they are just offering some opinion.

All I was basically saying is that the "black" twin appears
(at least to me) to reflect both of her parents' heritage (the black and white) where the "white" one does not at all.

If you are African American, then the chances are that you have some other heritage somewhere in your lineage and that is why you find so many varying degrees of what they are. And hence why your brother and mother inheirited lighter skin. These things don't happen in a vaccum. The genes must be there. The social structure is what binds a light skinned African American (who may have more white blood than black blood) to a dark skinned Nigerian immigrant. Some of those in your family tree may have had more blood from another ethnicity than black, yet considered themselves 100% black and it went down in history that way.

I too do not accept the concept of "race", at least not in the traditional sense that they lump everyone in the so-called black "race" into the same category, which means that everyone from people like Derek Jeter and Mariah Carey are the same as Manute Bol or Seal.

But on the other hand, I don't deny that groups of people are different. I just don't look at it as broad as tradition does. Science is finding that people are more "extended familes" than the far too broad "races". In other words, two Pigmies are likely to share many of the same characteristics, but they won't find anything that will link them significantly with any other group of people with dark skin that can constitute "race". So it is wrong to lump them into the same category with Dinkas for example.

Looking at things in this manner, there are thousands (perhaps millions) of "races". So as far as I'm concerned, Mariah Carey, Derek Jeter, Seal and Manute Bol are from four different "races".

 

Wow now thats truly amazing.

 

Well said Nellie. You said "these things don't happen in a vacuum". Again, you presume that being black means there is a threshold for skin lightness. There isn't. Skin color is the result of the expression of several genes. The degree of expression determines your color. Using height as an illustration, it becomes obvious that there isn't just one mode of expression. Within the same race, you could have short, tall and everything in between. This is of course overly simplified, but I hope you get the gist.

My family has donated blood (DNA) to some of the large human studies (just because we are curious about their findings) and I can tell you that there has been no predictable genetic mixing in my family (I am Nigerian by the way). My family was classified as aboriginal (genetically isolated people often used as 100% in studies- More like a negative control).

I realize this is not really an argument as we don't really have opposing themes. I do however encounter such generalizations frequently.

Race is a basically a social concept. However race can be constructively used in medicine. For example, certain drugs designed for the general population does not work as well for "black people". Hence race can be (and has begun) to be used in drug production. There are certainly differences amongst human beings, but the exceptions are too large to group people into different races.

I remember wondering in middle school how my black teacher can make his white wife pregnant if they weren't the same "race" LOL. I was so oblivious to race till I came (back) to the U.S.

 

I agree with you on almost all you say, but I think that you are missing my point slightly.

My point on the "black" twin is not only in her skin tone, but in hair texture and eye color (blue according to articles). This is why I was saying that she reflected her parents' heritage. You just don't find many 100% black Africans with blue eyes and with that hair texture. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

While at Uni in Nigeria, I met a girl from the Niger delta region (Port Harcourt). She was dark-skinned with turquoise-colored eyes. I crashed into the door when I saw her. Upon, regaining my senses I realized that my stepmom is light-skinned from the same area (Calabar), AND that this region was where the then-King Jaja of Opobo met the first whites to land on that part of West Africa, leading to the significant race-mixing that followed and the results of which I had just seen in that girl (and saw in my stepmom).

 

You could be right! Blue eyes is not very common in 100 percent Africans, it nevertheless occurs. Also Africa like the rest of the world has had its share of exploitation. You will find a lot of mixed people in Africa.