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| Down Under |
| Baby sisters' colour mix a rare phenomenon |
| 2006-10-21 |
| BEAUTIFUL twin sisters Alicia and Jasmin Singerl certainly make people look twice. Alicia has dark brown eyes and complexion, and Jasmin is blue-eyed and fair-skinned. Experts say the chance of twins being born with such different physical characteristics is about a million to one. The sisters from Burpengary, north of Brisbane, were born in May. Mother Natasha Knight, 35, has Jamaican-English heritage, and their father, Michael Singerl, 34, was born in Germany. The couple, who are engaged, also have a five-year-old daughter, Taylah, who is blue-eyed with blonde hair and a light olive complexion. Ms Knight said she was shocked when she saw the difference between her daughters. "It's just amazing . . . they are so different,'' she said. "You could see there was a colour difference straight away. We couldn't believe it. "Alicia's eyes were brown and her hair was dark. Jasmin's eyes were blue and her hair was white - you could hardly see her hair or her eyebrows. "We were joking when I was pregnant about what if one baby looked like me and one looked like Michael. We joked about one light one, one dark one, so it was amazing when it actually happened. ``When we go out, people stop and ask if they are twins. Other people will look but not say anything. Maybe they think I am babysitting one of them. "Someone even asked me if I was sure there wasn't a mix-up at the hospital. But there was no mix-up - they are my girls and they are both so beautiful. "It will be interesting when they go to school and they will probably wonder why they look so different from each other. I guess the easiest way to explain it will be to say one took after mum, one took after dad.'' Genetics experts say that in most cases a mixed-race woman's eggs will be a mixture of genes for both black and white skin. However, much more rarely, the eggs may contain genes for predominantly one skin colour. In this case, Ms Knight has released two such eggs - one with predominantly dark pigmentation genes and one with predominantly fair genes. Non-identical twins are conceived when two eggs are fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which has odds in itself of about 100-1. Clinical geneticist Stephen Withers said the likelihood of a mixed-race woman having eggs that were predominantly for one skin colour was rare enough, let alone releasing two of them simultaneously and producing twins. "It's probably a million to one,'' Dr Withers said. "It's a terrifically rare phenomenon.'' |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #11 In junior high school, I knew a brother and sister (not twins) named Sullivan. The brother was your standard Mk. 1 Mod. 0 Irish-American kid; the sister had dark hair and a latte complexion. Took me several weeks to realize they were from the same family. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-10-21 21:58 |
| #10 These twins are destined to torment the boys as they grow older. "Hmmmm ... chocolate or vanilla?" |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-21 21:34 |
| #9 Grunter, I realized that the term is archaic or may have been used where I grew up. It is a variant of short-faced persian short-hair cat. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-10-21 21:01 |
| #8 2x4, going back a generation, the trace of pekinese is certainly impressive. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2006-10-21 18:50 |
| #7 Angie - CSI fan? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-10-21 18:14 |
| #6 How did she manage to pull that off is a mystery to me. Catting around. |
| Posted by: xbalanke 2006-10-21 17:18 |
| #5 Like cats. My cat--grey tabby with a trace of pekinese--had the following litter: 1 snow-white, 1 black and white, 1 grey siamese, 1 calico brown'n'black and 1 orange tabby that did not make it. How did she manage to pull that off is a mystery to me. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-10-21 17:05 |
| #4 Could be. But light skin, light hair and blue eyes are the result of simple recessive genes. All you need for them to show up is for the embryo to inherit one of the genes from each parent. The mother carries one copy of these genes from her mother and the father carries at least one copy as well, as their older daughter proves. What is unusual is that in the case of the lighter twin, two copies of the genes for skin, eyes and hair all got inherited at once. It's statistically rare, but not otherwise surprising so far as I can tell. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-21 17:05 |
| #3 Maybe she's a chimera. |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2006-10-21 16:59 |
| #2 And just who would that be, bigjim? |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-21 16:55 |
| #1 Phenomenon or no, somebody'd have some spaining to do at my house. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-10-21 16:48 |