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Just wondering...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
This is a bit random, but I was just wondering if any of you knew..
If a set of male twins and a set of female twins reproduce, will their children look the same.
E.g.
2 guy twins, 2 girl twins
1 guy twin and girl twin have kids
second guy twin and girl twin have kids
will the kids look the same e.g. will a child look the same as their cousin? What are the chances?
I mean, with all the chromosomes/genes and whatever I'm guessing the probability is kinda low? However, surely it must have happened somewhere in the world..?
I've googled but can't find anything.
If a set of male twins and a set of female twins reproduce, will their children look the same.
E.g.
2 guy twins, 2 girl twins
1 guy twin and girl twin have kids
second guy twin and girl twin have kids
will the kids look the same e.g. will a child look the same as their cousin? What are the chances?
I mean, with all the chromosomes/genes and whatever I'm guessing the probability is kinda low? However, surely it must have happened somewhere in the world..?
I've googled but can't find anything.
0
Comments
It'd be pretty hard for kids from two different sets of twins to look identical. The reason for this is that during meiosis (cell splitting to form reproductive cells) there is interaction between the parent chromosomes and DNA is shared between them. i.e. it's not that you have either your mum's chromosome or your dad's chromosome in your sperm cell/egg cell... In fact, all pairs of chromosomes join together and swap large random chunks of DNA sequence. In addition to that, there's no set order as to which parents chromosomes go into which cell.
There's millions of possible permutations for reproductive cells - and the chances of two pairs of identical twins having the exact same two reproductive cells meet are VERY slim.
Are you following dr_carter around translating what he says into language we can all understand?
This animation shows simply how sex cells are formed in an organism with one pair of chromosomes - the sex cells then have to fuse with another sex cell from the other parent. Considering that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes the chances of the scenario above is slim.... lots and lots of crossing over.
ahem, I did say that I imagine the chances to be extremely low "with all the chromosomes/genes":p
I just think that surely it must have happened at least once in the world. I mean think of the billions of people who are alive, and have lived.
Pedant