Twins might look alike, talk alike, walk alike and they even look alike but, Twins are a fascinating genetic miracle. Here are top 10 things you don’t know about twins.
Whether they are conjoined, polar body, identical, mirror or separated at birth, The complexities of twins are something that both the average man and scientists have marveled over for decades.
Identical twins are not so similar. It is common knowledge that they have the same DNA; however, that doesn’t mean that they are similar in every sense. From birth, identical twins have different fingerprints and belly buttons. As they age, they change totally different from each other.
Identical twins are the result of a fertilized egg that splits in half, and However, in a rare case, an egg splits before fertilization. If a separate sperm fertilize the eggs, the resulting babies are called semi-identical twins. Semi identical twins share about 75 percent of DNA, and they are not quite identical in this case.
About one-fourth of Twins develop as the mirror image of each other. The split is quite early than usual; inside the womb, they face each other and develop as an exact mirror copy of each other. One may be right-handed while the other is left-handed. Their hair whorls will be twirled in the opposite direction, and they may have matching birthmarks on opposite sides of their bodies. In some rare cases, even the internal organs can be on the opposite side.
This fact from top 10 things you don’t know about twins is quite interesting. Twins are becoming more common than before. The birth rate of twins has increased by up to 75 percent in the last few years. A study shows that women drinking cow’s milk were more likely to give birth to twins.
While the twin births are becoming more prevalent, Identical birth rates have remained constant across the globe at 4/1000 births.
A research in Utah shows that women who give birth to twins live longer than those who give birth to single children. The research hypothesized that these mothers have naturally stronger genes which help in longer life spans.
A study published in PLOS One, shows that twins begin to interact with each other at around 14 weeks in the womb. They put their heads against each other, lean-to comfort each other and have a powerful bond.
Just as twins have a nonverbal communication in the womb, when they grow up, they have a skill of talking with each other in a way that no one else can understand. They communicate with each other by listening and repeating each other. They have a secret language between them.
A study in the United Kingdom found that twins’ IQ is low in the initial stages of life as children, but their IQ levels can boom much faster than the others.
When an identical twin pair marries an identical twin pair, and both couples have children, Their children are cousins, Right? Well, genetically speaking, they’re siblings.
If you examine DNA from each of the children, researchers found that you cannot identify which DNA is of Which child. This is because their parents have the same exact DNA. The children are cousins because their parents are siblings. However, as the parents are identical twins siblings, The children’s genetics are the same, making them siblings in genetics.
Aren’t these top 10 things you don’t know about twins fascinating?