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An extremely rare pair of twins has been discovered that share their mother’s characteristics but only half of the father’s genes creating an anomoly termed ‘semi-identical’. Twins are normally identified as either ‘identical’ or ‘fraternal’ but this third grouping is now being added.
... 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.
(science.slashdot.org)
References: nature, science.slashdot.org
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