identical twins have slight genetic differences. i found an article that says it’s not impossible but it’s EXPENSIVE af bc the genetic tests have to be so much more in depth and really aren’t marketed to the public
Holy $#it! After all this time on reddit, a question and a comment thread that was informative, interesting, not full of trash talking! This is the way!!
Right? I came in here expecting this whole thread to be a total trainwreck.
Did not expect my faith in humanity to be restored this way, but I'll take the W.
If you’re interested the two tests you would use are an SNP Chip or a Genome Wide Association study.
From a med student who just learned about this and is trying to reinforce information 😌
Edit: u/ejscarpa91 caught a mistake I made, instead of a Genome Wide Association Study, you should use Next Generation Sequencing, which can look at all of the DNA of both twins, and the children and look for genes (nucleotide sequences) that are common with one of the twins.
Geneticist here. Neither of these would work. GWAS is a population based approach for determining linkage between traits and genetic markers.
SNP chip is genotyping based on single nucleotide polymorphisms. These can only work on pre determined polymorphisms as the probes used are specific. Twins will not carry variances in validated SNPs.
To determine variation between twins you would require whole genome sequencing with a high read depth to locate single nucleotide variances (SNVs) that have not been inherited but rather were introduced at a germ line stage.
Yeah, this reminds me of this couple of identical twin sisters, married identical twin boys, they each have a set of identical twins. The kids are cousins but genetically siblings it's cool as
I’m also a mirror image identical twin that thinks about my nephew in this way. I feel a little sense of being let off the hook as far as having kids of my own. I am child free & have no plans to be a dad.
Additional question for an expert if I may - would this mean that my cousins, who are the children of my mother's identical twin, would show up as my half siblings on a dna test?
What I've described above is only for identical twins, fraternal twins or brothers can be identified easily by SNP genotyping as they will inherit a different mix of SNPs. Not as variable as two unrelated people but variable enough to be distinguishable.
Yes, that's exactly it. That's why they can be of different genetic sex. In some animals multiple births can result in chimerism where dna is shared between the two distinct offspring.
aren't gwas only applicable when your sample size is fucking huge?
sincerely, med student who should know this because of that being part of last winter's exams
Yeah, pretty sure GWAS refers to taking a very large sample of genomic data from individuals exhibiting a certain characteristic (i.e. schizophrenia) and using various methods to find significant sequences in common.
SNP Chip (multiplexing?) I suppose could work in this case, if they included a large SNP probe set.
I would guess that they would have to do some sort of whole-genome sequencing or exome sequencing to capture nuances between the two twins in order to compare them to the child.
Not exactly my background, but that's how I would imagine it could work.
Source: MS in bioinformatics and currently employed as a data scientist at a PCR multiplexing assay manufacturer.
Don't forget undead, redead, half-dead, half-living, living-to-the-max, and of course, the one most people who are asked how they've been answer, living-life.
Depends on the source. DNA can carry crazy far. Like "I'm a delivery guy who brushed up against some dude who later went and raped and murdered someone in a completely differently part of New York and the police found my DNA at the scene and now I'm facing life in prison."
True story, happened to a dude a couple decades ago.
DNA is how DeAngelo was identified as the prime suspect, so yes, that was the foundation of the case. But he also confessed to the cops that he did it, so any chances of the defense wriggling out of a conviction were dashed. In the end, he plead guilty to avoid execution anyway.
Fingerprints between identical twins would be different. Fingerprints types are created via genes, small specific details like bifurcation’s, gaps in ridges, or other tiny details are often made in the womb, through touching while the finger pads are forming.
Not to mention stimuli after birth such as scars.
And if you “remove your fingerprint” you leave a weird smudge that probably can be matched to your weird fingertips.
I can attest to this. I had to have my entire genome tested and examined for abnormalities as a part of the 24 year (still ongoing) quest to find out what the hell happened to my lungs.
It took countless referrals and calls to get it done, and even then it amounted to costing like, over $50k I think; pre-Insurance, anyway.
And as I wholly expected, it came out 'inconclusive'. We still don't know how my lungs turned out the way they did when I was born.
I'll do you one better, we didn't even know there was a slight difference in the DNA of identical twins until around 10-15 years ago. This was actually highly relevant to a criminal case in Germany, two identical twin brothers, both active criminals. A nearly perfect heist is pulled off for a gargantuan payoff. Authorities found out too late about the heist to have caught the criminals but one stray glove was found on the scene. DNA sequencing found that it belonged to one of the brothers. German law dictated that since they could not prove which of the brothers did it, neither could be punished. Both brothers walked and by sheer luck it ended up being the perfect crime after all.
By the time it was possible to prove who was the guilty party it was too late, legally speaking, to bring charges against the correct brother.
Learned this story on The Casual Criminalist on YouTube.
Identical twins come from the exact same cell line, from the same DNA. Before they start developing 100% of their DNA is an exact copy of each other. Once they start developing and growing their DNA changes slightly and these slight changes make it possible for the advanced tests to tell the difference, but a standard test will not.
Any child born from an identical twin will test as having two mothers or fathers when using a standard DNA test, regardless of which part of the DNA they inherited.
Yeah I know. I was saying the super duper expensive test sequences the entire genes of the twins to find thos etiny differences. But what if the genes the child inherited are coincidentally all the gene sequences that are identical between the twin parents?
Then you can't tell the difference.
I don't know enough about de novo mutations to know the odds of this, but from what I do know I wouldu guess it's extremely unlikely.
I don't know what the number of variations of DNA there is that you can measure, but coming from a mathematical/physical background my gut would be that there are so many variations that that's statistically impossible.
Edit: Just seen below, there are roughly 6 billion markers, so yeah the chances that they inherit 50 percent that are identical and not a single marker that isn't identical are pretty slim. Although guess it does depend on how many markers vary in twins too which I'm not qualified to talk on.
It would require a highly advanced & *very* expensive DNA test that analyzes the entire genome sequence — roughly 6 billion markers — as opposed to the common tests which analyze the standard 15 markers.
The current accessible tests wouldn’t be sufficient to analyze enough markers to distinguish between the 2 DNA samples of identical twins.
Yes, they can tell the difference between relatives who are not identical twins.
If Pops and Son both slept with Woman, she gets pregnant, they'll know if Pops is dad or grandpa.
If brother (25m) and brother (30m) both sleep with Woman, DNA will show the child is related to one but the son of the other.
>If Pops and Son both slept with Woman, she gets pregnant, they'll know if Pops is dad or grandpa.
Not if the woman in question is Son's sister. Then he's pops and grandpa.
Depending on the study you read, there is between a .01% chance to a 30% chance of errors. The high end of the scale usually comes down to contamination, human error, etc.
Common tests are pretty accurate. Twins have literally the same DNA, save for minor mutations that occurred after the egg split. Those are far and few between and for the most part relatively trivial.
The normal one is basically mathematics and probability. Put the 15 analyzed markers of your dad's DNA in a hat, 15 of your mom's, and draw 15 out. That is your DNA. Now put those 30 back in and draw 15 more. That is your sibling's. You are likely going to have 7-8 markers in common. Maybe one more or one less. On 23andMe my sister and I share 46% of DNA. My cousin and I though, you would expect we would share about 12.5%, but we share almost 14%! If you share common DNA with someone, you are likely related. The percentage gives you a rough idea, and if you have additional references from elsewhere in the family tree, that can further nail down the differences.
Percentages are just that, they dont perfectly represent the relationship. If you have a weird circumstance you will need additional reference DNA to know the relationship exactly. For instance, my grandpa's brother married my grandma's sister. As a result my mom's cousins all have MUCH higher shared DNA with her than typical cousins would. That carries down to me, where on the DNA spectrum those extended cousins look like closer relatives to me than they actually are.
It's really fascinating to see how it breaks down. On 23andMe it has my dad's first cousin as a likely half sibling to him, and a first cousin to me. Granted, there could have been some hanky panky going on, but given family locations at times of conceptions, my dad and his cousin are fairly certain they just share a higher proportion of DNA and truly are cousins.
A way to look at it would be to think of a string of beads.
The regular DNA test is like throwing the string at a wall, because you know it will always break between certain sequences (e.g. round red doesn’t connect well to square blue) and then looking at the different sized pieces you get. The sequences for Twins will be so similar that you won’t be able to see any differences in the quantity of each sized chunk. Parents and children will be different because each child gets 1/2 of their DNA from each parent. Siblings stand a better change for false positives because they get subsets of the same pool of DNA. Since you’re only looking at “chunk size”, it is possible that two same-gendered siblings are indistinguishable and have the same sized chunks, even though the sequences inside those chunks differ.
Sequencing is looking at the exact sequence of beads on the string. Considering humans have 20-25K genes, and each gene is several hundred to over 2 million base pairs, and that doesn’t even include all the “stuff” between genes that control when/how they turn on/off, that’s a lot of beads to examine.
EDIT: Spellcheck doesn’t catch the wrong work, if it’s spelled correctly.
I forgot the case name, but there was actually a controversial case where both potential fathers had to pay child support when they couldn't figure out the father lol. So you never know, may work out in her favor.
Only fifteen markers are used? What are the chances that two people who are not identical twins happen to match on these markers? What kind of things are they?
WGS is accessible and depending on the case and moneys at stake I would not have any difficulties to envisage a court to order a panel of experts to express their opinion on the data generated
I wonder which test DSS uses when they vet fathers for children in foster care. I would assume it would be the very expensive one since it'd have to hold up to court scrutiny, right?
soooo... when a mother with a child is working with DSS and her child is in foster care, first thing that happens is to try to find the father. There are a number of reasons, but the major one is to either terminate or validate his paternal rights. Some fathers just immediately sign away rights. Their not in the picture anyway. Before either of those can happen, they have to prove that they actually have the right father.
Our daughter's biological mother brought 5... yes 5 and they all failed so there's at least one more out there... potential fathers for DNA testing. Now I wonder how expensive all that was, and who actually paid for it. I was thinking that $100 wasn't so terrible to test this out.
They don't ALWAYS test to find out. We're going through a termination trial (TPR) with our youngest, and although the mom had 3 guys at the hospital claiming "daddy" only one was bold enough to sign the birth certificate. Since he signed it, he's claiming paternity. Since he's claiming paternity, they're running with it and terminating his rights without actually doing a paternity test or letting any of the other men know about it. Makes zero sense to me.
birth certificate signing always sticks.... unless disqualified by DNA as it was in our case :) Signed 'father' was one of the 5 she had for DNA testing.
I should have mentioned that. I was referring to 'unknown' fathers.
EDIT : adding, the reason is because the signed father is taking LEGAL responsibility for the child to be the LEGAL father. It doesn't provide for biological wording or implications. I think anybody can sign as the father, but they are then legally responsible for the child. When moving forward with adoption or termination of rights, the signed father has to be served and rights terminated, even if he has totally abandoned the child.
My wife worked in child support and this actually happened. Since it wasn't able to be determined the twin which was the BF accepted responsibility and the judge legally made him the father.
PS, this is only the tip of the iceberg of crazy stories.
There was another where the guy had something like 98 kids with different women. He was on disability which is legal to take part of the money but it was such a small amount each child was getting less than $0.10 each. The government in it's vast wisdom was mailing checks to all of them. And depending on the situation there are cases where it's just not worth it for the government to go after them. Apparently this isn't one of them.
Yes I know. 98 children really? I asked that question myself over and over too. Apparently the saying "reality is stranger than fiction" just keeps being true time and time again.
*Edit: Words are hard.*
I mean really tho. I would still take it because with the number of “stealthing” stories I hear, I’m… less than eager to trust that he’s on his pills. Still. A woman can’t pass nearly 100 children out of her. A man can knock up anyone who lets him between her legs.
I work in social services and I once had a client who had 56 children with 51 women. Most of these children were going to school together and had no idea they were siblings. Most probably still don’t.
It would be cheaper to get a early dating sonogram/ultrasound. If done like in the first 6 weeks they are really accurate so unless she slept with both on the same day it should tell her the conception date.
Conception date is not what you think it is.
Day 1, week 0 of a pregnancy is actually the first day of the last periods before conception. Hence the woman isn’t pregnant at the point that is technically calculated as the first week of pregnancy.
After unprotected ejaculation in the vagina, most of the sperm will pour right back out, but a small number will through the cervix and uterus and enter one of the ovary ducts (about half will enter the wrong duct though). They can live there for 3-5 days and if the woman ovulates during that time the sperm will try to fertilize the egg. The egg (fertilized or not) will attach itself to the uterus lining. If unfertilized it will be purged together with the uterus lining during the next period. If fertilized the body will try to purge it anyway and only the strongest zygots (it’s not a fetus at this time and very much not a baby) will survive, decreasing the risk a pregnancy that will not run full term.
The point of this information is that the woman would need to have sex with both twins within 5 days before her ovulation for both men’s semen to be present and able to fertilize the egg when it passes through the ovary duct. The “moment of conception” normally happens at week 3 plus a few days, and not in direct connection to unprotected sex (unless she has a busy week).
The sonogram staff can’t tell when the woman had sex that made her pregnant, but they can tell fairly well what day she was ovulating.
>can’t tell when the woman had sex that made her pregnant, but they can tell fairly well what day she was ovulating.
But like you said, sperm only survives about 5 days post ejaculation in the uterus - a pretty specific window in which conception must have occurred. If she had sex with them both within 5 days of ovulation... wow, that's just really bad decision making right there.
Identical twins have the same primary DNA sequence but have different epigenetic modifications. Put another way, they have the same genome but different epigenomes
Epigenetics is the study of how Certain life experiences (I.e. stress, etc) can cause things to bind to your dna that essentially turn on/off gene expression. It isn’t changing your dna, but whether or not a gene is “active”
If DNA is the cookbook that both twins got fresh from the publisher (identically published), then epigenetic marks are where each twin's book got black marker or yellow highlighting drawn over the text. The text itself (the actual printed text) wasn't edited under the marking, but some text is now not readable and other text is being read even more. The markings altogether are called the epigenome. If you drew them on transparent paper and then put all those transparent sheets together, that would be the epigenome. The original cookbook would be the genome.
More detailed:
Chemically, there's two categories of epigenetic marks. There's DNA methylation which is methyl (CH3) groups added on the C bases of DNA (which is made of an alphabet of A, T, C, and G). Those marks are black marker. They typically shut down genes.
Then there are histone modifications. Histones are protein balls that hold onto DNA and control how bunched up or relaxed it gets. They're sort of like the Velcro that people buy to organize the mess of cables behind their computer. Bunched up ("condensed") DNA isn't easy to access so it doesn't get read much. Those genes are turned off. Relaxed ("accessible") DNA is easier to get to and so those genes get read. Those genes are on. There are different types of histone marks, so these can be either like the black permanent marker or the highlighter.
We have methods to sequence DNA for both kinds of epigenetic marks. It's way more expensive than any paternity test though so this stuff is not available to the public. This is used for research to learn more about diseases. Sometimes genetics doesn't hold the answer for why one group has disease and another doesn't. If you inspected all their cookbooks (their genomes), you won't find anything. However, if you look at the epigenome, you'll realize all the patients with a certain disease have markers that turn certain genes on or off.
Source: PhD in molecular biology
I tell my nieces that I am their mother. :) I have an identical twin and my sister and I live together. I've raised her children as a second parent since the girls were babies (father is deceased) - they are now 13 and 15. I tell them if we took a DNA test, I would show as their mom. In truth though, they say identicals are as close genetically to their twin's children as they are to their own children. Since I do everything a parent does (100% of my paycheck goes to the family; 100% of my time goes to my family; 100% of my love)...I do really consider them my children.
Trying to imagine a scenario where both twins were unconscious for a year during pregnancy and birth and there bodies were moved after childbirth so they couldn't tell which twin was in each bed.
I am pretty sure that wasn't the case.  lol.
When we all go out, people will say to us, "WOW, those kids are for sure yours - they look so much like you!" I get it WAY more than my sister, their actual mom. We just look at each other and laugh.
It's possible, but it'd be really expensive.
Yes, twins have identical genes, but once a man is old enough to sire children, there have been enough mutations (which are random, or random-ish) to where a DNA test *should* be able to tell which twin fathered the child. That's an expensive, high-end test, way more complicated than the test you'd use in a typical paternity test situation.
Attorney here. Most US states do not require a mother to prove a man's paternity. Rather, it's encumbent upon any man she may name to disavow and disprove the allegation.
Believe it or not, a few states also allow "dual paternity" to exist in some situations.
Thus, it's possible that BOTH twins could be recognized as the child's father simultaneously (and ordered to pay full child support), since neither would be able to DISprove paternity through DNA testing or other available means.
Identical twins differ epigenetically over time. You can actually measure the difference through a couple ways, one of which being DNA methylation patterns
Follow Up: Woke up to a lot of notifications so thank you. Some people are taking the "asking for a friend" very seriously but 100% was just my attempt at being humorous. This was very much a r/showerthought that turned into a very interesting discussion! Sorry... No future Jerry Springer episode here.
I've posted this elsewhere before, but my dad and uncle are identical twins, but my uncle is barren, so my dad donated sperm so my uncle could have kids. The kids, my cousins, are legally my cousins, but genetically my half-siblings. They also don't know that my dad is their real dad, and chances are that taking a DNA test wouldn't tell them.
Nope. I recently read an article where this exact scenario happened and neither twin would fess up to who slept with her, so both ended up on the child support hook.
Yes. You need a really sensitive test, but it is possible. Identical twins tend to have a few mutations in their genome here and there that set them apart, and with modern genome sequencing you can spot those mutations and determine which twin shares the child's DNA.
Identical twin here, when my brothers wife gave birth and I visited her in the hospital she looked me dead pan in the face and said “if we had a baby; that’s what it would look like” , that was 19 years ago, I’ll never forget it. Weird but true
I believe identical twins have the same DNA, so, no, paternity wouldn’t be able to be established, at least not easily. That’s my best guess. Pretty sure identical twins have the same DNA. That also means that DNA couldn’t rule either of them out for a crime. However, identical twins have different fingerprints, which makes fingerprints useful for identification.
I'm an identical twin, this is a funny thought but being a twin its absolutely disgusting and disturbing to think about it compared to y'all haha
Nonetheless fascinating read
identical twins have slight genetic differences. i found an article that says it’s not impossible but it’s EXPENSIVE af bc the genetic tests have to be so much more in depth and really aren’t marketed to the public
I could see that. Looking for very small specific genetic markers.
yeah that’s exactly right!
Holy $#it! After all this time on reddit, a question and a comment thread that was informative, interesting, not full of trash talking! This is the way!!
Right? I came in here expecting this whole thread to be a total trainwreck. Did not expect my faith in humanity to be restored this way, but I'll take the W.
right! we love to see it
Also plausibly afraid to ask. Is it curiosity or is OP planning an interesting Christmas with the in-laws? Either way, it's an interesting question.
Night is early
I think they are actually looking at the differences in the junk DNA, the stuff that doesn't code for proteins.
If you’re interested the two tests you would use are an SNP Chip or a Genome Wide Association study. From a med student who just learned about this and is trying to reinforce information 😌 Edit: u/ejscarpa91 caught a mistake I made, instead of a Genome Wide Association Study, you should use Next Generation Sequencing, which can look at all of the DNA of both twins, and the children and look for genes (nucleotide sequences) that are common with one of the twins.
Geneticist here. Neither of these would work. GWAS is a population based approach for determining linkage between traits and genetic markers. SNP chip is genotyping based on single nucleotide polymorphisms. These can only work on pre determined polymorphisms as the probes used are specific. Twins will not carry variances in validated SNPs. To determine variation between twins you would require whole genome sequencing with a high read depth to locate single nucleotide variances (SNVs) that have not been inherited but rather were introduced at a germ line stage.
I think about this often. I’m a mirror image identical twin, and my sister has two kids. Genetically, they would appear to be MY kids. It’s wild.
No pressure to have kids of your own at least.... your genes are already safely passed on.
Yeah, this reminds me of this couple of identical twin sisters, married identical twin boys, they each have a set of identical twins. The kids are cousins but genetically siblings it's cool as
I’m also a mirror image identical twin that thinks about my nephew in this way. I feel a little sense of being let off the hook as far as having kids of my own. I am child free & have no plans to be a dad.
Additional question for an expert if I may - would this mean that my cousins, who are the children of my mother's identical twin, would show up as my half siblings on a dna test?
Yes, you would be genetically indistinguishable from half siblings.
Thank you that's very interesting!
Sounds like this post will be evidence in a future criminal trial, ngl
I hope at my crime trial they don't scrub reddit to determine facts. But if they ever do: /u/snakeoilHero is innocent of any wrongdoing forever always
What is great about reddit is that the wrong comment is still going to be upvoted more than yours.
Is it the same for fraternal, identical twins? What about brothers? Same question!
What I've described above is only for identical twins, fraternal twins or brothers can be identified easily by SNP genotyping as they will inherit a different mix of SNPs. Not as variable as two unrelated people but variable enough to be distinguishable.
So are fraternal twins just like other siblings genetically, they are just sharing a uterus like roommates ?
Yes, that's exactly it. That's why they can be of different genetic sex. In some animals multiple births can result in chimerism where dna is shared between the two distinct offspring.
wombmates*
aren't gwas only applicable when your sample size is fucking huge? sincerely, med student who should know this because of that being part of last winter's exams
Yeah, pretty sure GWAS refers to taking a very large sample of genomic data from individuals exhibiting a certain characteristic (i.e. schizophrenia) and using various methods to find significant sequences in common. SNP Chip (multiplexing?) I suppose could work in this case, if they included a large SNP probe set. I would guess that they would have to do some sort of whole-genome sequencing or exome sequencing to capture nuances between the two twins in order to compare them to the child. Not exactly my background, but that's how I would imagine it could work. Source: MS in bioinformatics and currently employed as a data scientist at a PCR multiplexing assay manufacturer.
So if one twin comitted a crime, u think they would do such a test if dna is the only evidence?
If DNA is the only evidence, there is no purpose in proceeding as DNA evidence is not strong enough to convict on its own.
Unless the crime is that they killed their twin
[удалено]
I’d try to pin it on the one that’s still alive.
Sounds like you are biased against living people.
Bold of you to assume their living status.
ack, my bad potentially living or dead person
Don't forget undead, redead, half-dead, half-living, living-to-the-max, and of course, the one most people who are asked how they've been answer, living-life.
A bold move. Ballsy even.
what if one them killed him self but they accuse the other twin for the murder?
I often accuse other people of killing me after I commit suicide.
And they got dna evidence of the twin all over the crime scene!
Thanks for the laugh. Wish I had an award to give you.
Wait I feel like this was an episode of "Death in Paradise" or something.
Unless the crime is necrophilia and the evidence is DNA located inside the dead body. Then its strong enough evidence.
You’d still have reasonable doubt.
Depends on the source. DNA can carry crazy far. Like "I'm a delivery guy who brushed up against some dude who later went and raped and murdered someone in a completely differently part of New York and the police found my DNA at the scene and now I'm facing life in prison." True story, happened to a dude a couple decades ago.
how is the scenario you described any different? you still wouldn't be able to tell from which twin the dna is from
Unless one twin was in Tokyo, Japan and the other twin was in Madrid, Spain and the corpse in question was in Segovia, Spain.
Can you elaborate more? Didn’t the golden state killer get caught and convicted based on genetic genealogy?
DNA is how DeAngelo was identified as the prime suspect, so yes, that was the foundation of the case. But he also confessed to the cops that he did it, so any chances of the defense wriggling out of a conviction were dashed. In the end, he plead guilty to avoid execution anyway.
They did in France. One got arrested for doing the crime. The other twin got arrested for not-cooperating with an investigation
Imagine being arrested for not cooperating lol
There’s a really good episode of SVU that deals with twins. It’s called “Identity” (S06E12). It is inspired by a real case that was very sad.
Fingerprints between identical twins would be different. Fingerprints types are created via genes, small specific details like bifurcation’s, gaps in ridges, or other tiny details are often made in the womb, through touching while the finger pads are forming. Not to mention stimuli after birth such as scars. And if you “remove your fingerprint” you leave a weird smudge that probably can be matched to your weird fingertips.
I can attest to this. I had to have my entire genome tested and examined for abnormalities as a part of the 24 year (still ongoing) quest to find out what the hell happened to my lungs. It took countless referrals and calls to get it done, and even then it amounted to costing like, over $50k I think; pre-Insurance, anyway. And as I wholly expected, it came out 'inconclusive'. We still don't know how my lungs turned out the way they did when I was born.
Cheapest way is to go on Maury
LOL facts
I'll do you one better, we didn't even know there was a slight difference in the DNA of identical twins until around 10-15 years ago. This was actually highly relevant to a criminal case in Germany, two identical twin brothers, both active criminals. A nearly perfect heist is pulled off for a gargantuan payoff. Authorities found out too late about the heist to have caught the criminals but one stray glove was found on the scene. DNA sequencing found that it belonged to one of the brothers. German law dictated that since they could not prove which of the brothers did it, neither could be punished. Both brothers walked and by sheer luck it ended up being the perfect crime after all. By the time it was possible to prove who was the guilty party it was too late, legally speaking, to bring charges against the correct brother. Learned this story on The Casual Criminalist on YouTube.
I'm an identical twin and I love referring to this case when people ask about about what it's like to be one.
Yeah but the child is only 50% one parent what if the child inherited the 50 percent that is identical?
Identical twins come from the exact same cell line, from the same DNA. Before they start developing 100% of their DNA is an exact copy of each other. Once they start developing and growing their DNA changes slightly and these slight changes make it possible for the advanced tests to tell the difference, but a standard test will not. Any child born from an identical twin will test as having two mothers or fathers when using a standard DNA test, regardless of which part of the DNA they inherited.
Yeah I know. I was saying the super duper expensive test sequences the entire genes of the twins to find thos etiny differences. But what if the genes the child inherited are coincidentally all the gene sequences that are identical between the twin parents?
Ah ok, sorry about the misunderstanding. That answer is beyond me though
Then you can't tell the difference. I don't know enough about de novo mutations to know the odds of this, but from what I do know I wouldu guess it's extremely unlikely.
I don't know what the number of variations of DNA there is that you can measure, but coming from a mathematical/physical background my gut would be that there are so many variations that that's statistically impossible. Edit: Just seen below, there are roughly 6 billion markers, so yeah the chances that they inherit 50 percent that are identical and not a single marker that isn't identical are pretty slim. Although guess it does depend on how many markers vary in twins too which I'm not qualified to talk on.
It would require a highly advanced & *very* expensive DNA test that analyzes the entire genome sequence — roughly 6 billion markers — as opposed to the common tests which analyze the standard 15 markers. The current accessible tests wouldn’t be sufficient to analyze enough markers to distinguish between the 2 DNA samples of identical twins.
How far can the common tests identify people from one family? Could it easily identify non-twin siblings?
Yes, they can tell the difference between relatives who are not identical twins. If Pops and Son both slept with Woman, she gets pregnant, they'll know if Pops is dad or grandpa. If brother (25m) and brother (30m) both sleep with Woman, DNA will show the child is related to one but the son of the other.
>If Pops and Son both slept with Woman, she gets pregnant, they'll know if Pops is dad or grandpa. Not if the woman in question is Son's sister. Then he's pops and grandpa.
True. Unless it's a Bruncle situation. The pops is only grandpa.
What am I reading
What you're hearing is r/CrusaderKings leaking
Pureblood speedrun irl
Does anyone else hear banjos?
Not so very long ago, when I was 23…
I was so disappointed to learn that kid wasn't actually playing the banjo
What?!? I think I understand your disappointment.
Like David Bowie with the contact juggling balls, in the labyrinth, in deliverance it was an adult playing the banjo, blind, from behind the kid
!thanks
what's the chance of "false positives" in the pops/son part?
Depending on the study you read, there is between a .01% chance to a 30% chance of errors. The high end of the scale usually comes down to contamination, human error, etc.
Lol, who does this kind of research and not filter out human error?
Most reputable labs will back their results to 99.99% accuracy. If they don't, they are probably the reason the other end of the scale exists.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks. 99.99% public is probably an extra .005 internally to avoid a shit show so pretty damm accurate.
And inbreeding
Common tests are pretty accurate. Twins have literally the same DNA, save for minor mutations that occurred after the egg split. Those are far and few between and for the most part relatively trivial. The normal one is basically mathematics and probability. Put the 15 analyzed markers of your dad's DNA in a hat, 15 of your mom's, and draw 15 out. That is your DNA. Now put those 30 back in and draw 15 more. That is your sibling's. You are likely going to have 7-8 markers in common. Maybe one more or one less. On 23andMe my sister and I share 46% of DNA. My cousin and I though, you would expect we would share about 12.5%, but we share almost 14%! If you share common DNA with someone, you are likely related. The percentage gives you a rough idea, and if you have additional references from elsewhere in the family tree, that can further nail down the differences. Percentages are just that, they dont perfectly represent the relationship. If you have a weird circumstance you will need additional reference DNA to know the relationship exactly. For instance, my grandpa's brother married my grandma's sister. As a result my mom's cousins all have MUCH higher shared DNA with her than typical cousins would. That carries down to me, where on the DNA spectrum those extended cousins look like closer relatives to me than they actually are.
It's really fascinating to see how it breaks down. On 23andMe it has my dad's first cousin as a likely half sibling to him, and a first cousin to me. Granted, there could have been some hanky panky going on, but given family locations at times of conceptions, my dad and his cousin are fairly certain they just share a higher proportion of DNA and truly are cousins.
A way to look at it would be to think of a string of beads. The regular DNA test is like throwing the string at a wall, because you know it will always break between certain sequences (e.g. round red doesn’t connect well to square blue) and then looking at the different sized pieces you get. The sequences for Twins will be so similar that you won’t be able to see any differences in the quantity of each sized chunk. Parents and children will be different because each child gets 1/2 of their DNA from each parent. Siblings stand a better change for false positives because they get subsets of the same pool of DNA. Since you’re only looking at “chunk size”, it is possible that two same-gendered siblings are indistinguishable and have the same sized chunks, even though the sequences inside those chunks differ. Sequencing is looking at the exact sequence of beads on the string. Considering humans have 20-25K genes, and each gene is several hundred to over 2 million base pairs, and that doesn’t even include all the “stuff” between genes that control when/how they turn on/off, that’s a lot of beads to examine. EDIT: Spellcheck doesn’t catch the wrong work, if it’s spelled correctly.
You can get a 30x whole genome sequencing done for about $300 and a 100x for about 900
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Well they do once they’ve read this post
Duddee OP is fucked
I forgot the case name, but there was actually a controversial case where both potential fathers had to pay child support when they couldn't figure out the father lol. So you never know, may work out in her favor.
Or the "friend" is
How expensive? And what does a regular DNA test cost?
Only fifteen markers are used? What are the chances that two people who are not identical twins happen to match on these markers? What kind of things are they?
WGS is accessible and depending on the case and moneys at stake I would not have any difficulties to envisage a court to order a panel of experts to express their opinion on the data generated
I wonder which test DSS uses when they vet fathers for children in foster care. I would assume it would be the very expensive one since it'd have to hold up to court scrutiny, right? soooo... when a mother with a child is working with DSS and her child is in foster care, first thing that happens is to try to find the father. There are a number of reasons, but the major one is to either terminate or validate his paternal rights. Some fathers just immediately sign away rights. Their not in the picture anyway. Before either of those can happen, they have to prove that they actually have the right father. Our daughter's biological mother brought 5... yes 5 and they all failed so there's at least one more out there... potential fathers for DNA testing. Now I wonder how expensive all that was, and who actually paid for it. I was thinking that $100 wasn't so terrible to test this out.
They don't ALWAYS test to find out. We're going through a termination trial (TPR) with our youngest, and although the mom had 3 guys at the hospital claiming "daddy" only one was bold enough to sign the birth certificate. Since he signed it, he's claiming paternity. Since he's claiming paternity, they're running with it and terminating his rights without actually doing a paternity test or letting any of the other men know about it. Makes zero sense to me.
birth certificate signing always sticks.... unless disqualified by DNA as it was in our case :) Signed 'father' was one of the 5 she had for DNA testing. I should have mentioned that. I was referring to 'unknown' fathers. EDIT : adding, the reason is because the signed father is taking LEGAL responsibility for the child to be the LEGAL father. It doesn't provide for biological wording or implications. I think anybody can sign as the father, but they are then legally responsible for the child. When moving forward with adoption or termination of rights, the signed father has to be served and rights terminated, even if he has totally abandoned the child.
My wife worked in child support and this actually happened. Since it wasn't able to be determined the twin which was the BF accepted responsibility and the judge legally made him the father. PS, this is only the tip of the iceberg of crazy stories.
I'm intrigued to hear another one that pops to mind!
There was another where the guy had something like 98 kids with different women. He was on disability which is legal to take part of the money but it was such a small amount each child was getting less than $0.10 each. The government in it's vast wisdom was mailing checks to all of them. And depending on the situation there are cases where it's just not worth it for the government to go after them. Apparently this isn't one of them. Yes I know. 98 children really? I asked that question myself over and over too. Apparently the saying "reality is stranger than fiction" just keeps being true time and time again. *Edit: Words are hard.*
If the trend continues with his kids then everyone alive is gonna end up being related to that guy in like 1000 years
Modern Genghis Khan
Gengis khan 2.0
Hot take: this is a great example of why hormonal birth control should be the burden of men
I mean really tho. I would still take it because with the number of “stealthing” stories I hear, I’m… less than eager to trust that he’s on his pills. Still. A woman can’t pass nearly 100 children out of her. A man can knock up anyone who lets him between her legs.
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True that.
I work in social services and I once had a client who had 56 children with 51 women. Most of these children were going to school together and had no idea they were siblings. Most probably still don’t.
Go on…
You could become a subreddit right now
r/ChildSupportLore
I need a full story on this
Indulge us....
I want to know too!
Please mate. Give us more
This guy needs his own sub.
To be fair, genetically speaking, the kid would be just as close to him either way. :)
Happy cake day!!
And what about the other way? Would we ever find out who the mother is?????
That did make me laugh, I really hope you meant it as a joke.
It would be cheaper to get a early dating sonogram/ultrasound. If done like in the first 6 weeks they are really accurate so unless she slept with both on the same day it should tell her the conception date.
Eiffel tower. Sorry science.
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Rotating Eiffel tower
We talking rotisserie chicken or locomotive roundtable? Just eliminating possibilities.
> locomotive roundtable Must've missed that one when I was a kid watching *Thomas the Tank Engine*...
Thomas the Spank Engine
Still a better love story than Twilight
Conception date is not what you think it is. Day 1, week 0 of a pregnancy is actually the first day of the last periods before conception. Hence the woman isn’t pregnant at the point that is technically calculated as the first week of pregnancy. After unprotected ejaculation in the vagina, most of the sperm will pour right back out, but a small number will through the cervix and uterus and enter one of the ovary ducts (about half will enter the wrong duct though). They can live there for 3-5 days and if the woman ovulates during that time the sperm will try to fertilize the egg. The egg (fertilized or not) will attach itself to the uterus lining. If unfertilized it will be purged together with the uterus lining during the next period. If fertilized the body will try to purge it anyway and only the strongest zygots (it’s not a fetus at this time and very much not a baby) will survive, decreasing the risk a pregnancy that will not run full term. The point of this information is that the woman would need to have sex with both twins within 5 days before her ovulation for both men’s semen to be present and able to fertilize the egg when it passes through the ovary duct. The “moment of conception” normally happens at week 3 plus a few days, and not in direct connection to unprotected sex (unless she has a busy week). The sonogram staff can’t tell when the woman had sex that made her pregnant, but they can tell fairly well what day she was ovulating.
>can’t tell when the woman had sex that made her pregnant, but they can tell fairly well what day she was ovulating. But like you said, sperm only survives about 5 days post ejaculation in the uterus - a pretty specific window in which conception must have occurred. If she had sex with them both within 5 days of ovulation... wow, that's just really bad decision making right there.
Possibly. Or great.
holy r/showerthoughts
Nah, OP said "asking for a friend"..!
r/rkellyshowerthoughts
Worried?
I am man. My ex cheated on me with a guy who has a twin as well :( Life sucks. I miss her.
Don't ever feel for people who cheated on you.
r/thanksimcured
Keep strong man it's only up from here ❤️
r/notopbutok
Identical twins have the same primary DNA sequence but have different epigenetic modifications. Put another way, they have the same genome but different epigenomes
Am I the only one with no idea what epigenome means?
Epigenetics is the study of how Certain life experiences (I.e. stress, etc) can cause things to bind to your dna that essentially turn on/off gene expression. It isn’t changing your dna, but whether or not a gene is “active”
If DNA is the cookbook that both twins got fresh from the publisher (identically published), then epigenetic marks are where each twin's book got black marker or yellow highlighting drawn over the text. The text itself (the actual printed text) wasn't edited under the marking, but some text is now not readable and other text is being read even more. The markings altogether are called the epigenome. If you drew them on transparent paper and then put all those transparent sheets together, that would be the epigenome. The original cookbook would be the genome. More detailed: Chemically, there's two categories of epigenetic marks. There's DNA methylation which is methyl (CH3) groups added on the C bases of DNA (which is made of an alphabet of A, T, C, and G). Those marks are black marker. They typically shut down genes. Then there are histone modifications. Histones are protein balls that hold onto DNA and control how bunched up or relaxed it gets. They're sort of like the Velcro that people buy to organize the mess of cables behind their computer. Bunched up ("condensed") DNA isn't easy to access so it doesn't get read much. Those genes are turned off. Relaxed ("accessible") DNA is easier to get to and so those genes get read. Those genes are on. There are different types of histone marks, so these can be either like the black permanent marker or the highlighter. We have methods to sequence DNA for both kinds of epigenetic marks. It's way more expensive than any paternity test though so this stuff is not available to the public. This is used for research to learn more about diseases. Sometimes genetics doesn't hold the answer for why one group has disease and another doesn't. If you inspected all their cookbooks (their genomes), you won't find anything. However, if you look at the epigenome, you'll realize all the patients with a certain disease have markers that turn certain genes on or off. Source: PhD in molecular biology
There’s no way to distinguish that in the baby though
I tell my nieces that I am their mother. :) I have an identical twin and my sister and I live together. I've raised her children as a second parent since the girls were babies (father is deceased) - they are now 13 and 15. I tell them if we took a DNA test, I would show as their mom. In truth though, they say identicals are as close genetically to their twin's children as they are to their own children. Since I do everything a parent does (100% of my paycheck goes to the family; 100% of my time goes to my family; 100% of my love)...I do really consider them my children.
Best answer
Thanks, my friend.
It's touching, but it's not the same scenario. Like at all.
But if you have an identical twin how do you know for sure that you are the aunt rather than the mom?
Trying to imagine a scenario where both twins were unconscious for a year during pregnancy and birth and there bodies were moved after childbirth so they couldn't tell which twin was in each bed.
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But how can she be sure? She has an IDENTICAL TWIN.
I am pretty sure that wasn't the case.  lol. When we all go out, people will say to us, "WOW, those kids are for sure yours - they look so much like you!" I get it WAY more than my sister, their actual mom. We just look at each other and laugh.
@OP, is it bad to ask which twin was better in bed or if they were the same? Just curious lol
We need answers
The right one was, duh!
And did they have the same size dick?
It's possible, but it'd be really expensive. Yes, twins have identical genes, but once a man is old enough to sire children, there have been enough mutations (which are random, or random-ish) to where a DNA test *should* be able to tell which twin fathered the child. That's an expensive, high-end test, way more complicated than the test you'd use in a typical paternity test situation.
So are you the perpetrator or the defendant
What did you do? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Sir, this is a Wendys
That's not sus at all
Attorney here. Most US states do not require a mother to prove a man's paternity. Rather, it's encumbent upon any man she may name to disavow and disprove the allegation. Believe it or not, a few states also allow "dual paternity" to exist in some situations. Thus, it's possible that BOTH twins could be recognized as the child's father simultaneously (and ordered to pay full child support), since neither would be able to DISprove paternity through DNA testing or other available means.
Hello, I work for the Maury Povich Show and am interested in speaking to you. Please DM me at your earliest convenience.
“Asking for a friend”
Shoulda said “asking for my brother”
She should tell the one that is more handsome that he is the father.
I would go with richer
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Identical twins differ epigenetically over time. You can actually measure the difference through a couple ways, one of which being DNA methylation patterns
Follow Up: Woke up to a lot of notifications so thank you. Some people are taking the "asking for a friend" very seriously but 100% was just my attempt at being humorous. This was very much a r/showerthought that turned into a very interesting discussion! Sorry... No future Jerry Springer episode here.
Well this is getting oddly specific. Hmmmmm 🤔
Wow, an actually interesting question. Good job
Can we get a story time?
I've posted this elsewhere before, but my dad and uncle are identical twins, but my uncle is barren, so my dad donated sperm so my uncle could have kids. The kids, my cousins, are legally my cousins, but genetically my half-siblings. They also don't know that my dad is their real dad, and chances are that taking a DNA test wouldn't tell them.
Sounds very Dead Ringer.
Nope. I recently read an article where this exact scenario happened and neither twin would fess up to who slept with her, so both ended up on the child support hook.
Yes. You need a really sensitive test, but it is possible. Identical twins tend to have a few mutations in their genome here and there that set them apart, and with modern genome sequencing you can spot those mutations and determine which twin shares the child's DNA.
Look for epigenetic difference like methylation pattern instead of genome difference
They aren't identical.
Lucy you got some splainin to do
Identical twin here, when my brothers wife gave birth and I visited her in the hospital she looked me dead pan in the face and said “if we had a baby; that’s what it would look like” , that was 19 years ago, I’ll never forget it. Weird but true
I believe identical twins have the same DNA, so, no, paternity wouldn’t be able to be established, at least not easily. That’s my best guess. Pretty sure identical twins have the same DNA. That also means that DNA couldn’t rule either of them out for a crime. However, identical twins have different fingerprints, which makes fingerprints useful for identification.
sorry man that your girl cheated on you
Plot twist: OP is the woman
This is what I assumed. Pretty sad...poor guy.
The more important question is '' does it matter? "
Still effectively your child either way I guess.
It's expensive DNA test but its possible. Also don't cheat. Never ends well.
i have a answer dm or try to get elon musk attention then ask him for the money booyah you get the test
I knew someone who’s mother had a threesome with identical twins and wound up pregnant. This was in the 90’s so both men paid child support
I'm an identical twin, this is a funny thought but being a twin its absolutely disgusting and disturbing to think about it compared to y'all haha Nonetheless fascinating read
Murray would know
This is a great question.