Sons I gave birth to are 'unrelated' to me

The Telegraph ^ | November 13, 2003 | Roger Highfield

[NYer]

One human chimera came to light when a 52-year-old woman demanded an explanation from doctors after tests showed that two of her three grown-up sons were biologically unrelated to her.

Although the woman, "Jane", conceived them naturally with her husband, tests to see if she could donate a kidney suggested that somehow she had given birth to somebody else's children.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr Margot Kruskall, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts, showed that Jane is a chimera, a mixture of two individuals - non-identical twin sisters - whose cells intermingled in the womb and grew into a single body.

Dr Kruskall believes the most likely explanation is that Jane's mother conceived non-identical twin girls, who fused at an early stage of the pregnancy to form a single embryo, according to a report published today in New Scientist.

For some reason, cells from only one twin dominate in Jane's blood - used for tissue-typing. In her other tissues, however, including her ovaries, cells of both twins live amicably alongside each other, hence the apparently impossible genetics of her three sons.

One son came from an egg derived from the twin whose cells dominate Jane's blood, while his brothers came from eggs derived from the other twin's cells.

Around 30 similar instances of chimerism have been reported, and there are probably many more who will never discover their unusual origins. Most chimeras probably go through life unaware of their unusual constitution.

[MEGoody]

"Question for the Christians (or Muslims or whatever) how many souls will go to heaven or hell? One or two or ...?"Don't know. I guess that's one of many reasons why He's God and I'm not.

[ASA Vet]

None.

[G L Tirebiter]

Question for the Christians (or Muslims or whatever) how many souls will go to heaven or hell? One or two or ...?

Buy One...Get One Free...With your Plus/Advantage/Special Shopper card.

[wardaddy]

ping

[stuartcr]

He?

[TaxRelief]

Possible explanation for multiple personality disorders or schizophrenia?

[armymarinemom]

There's also a variation on this, called a "mosaic".

This I have seen in someone who was a Mosaic Downs baby.

[MEGoody]

"I once had an adult student whose neck suddenly swelled out, just below the jawbone. After conducting a series of tests, the doctor told her she would require surgery to remove a gill that had not dissolved during her fetal development."Um, there are no gills during development of the fetus. Whoever told you this either misunderstood or was pulling your leg.

[SouthernFreebird]

Bwahahahahahah....my first thought too.

[Qwinn]

I was wrong. That corpse that was mistaken for artwork for several days was not the most "Just Damn" article I've ever read. This is.

Qwinn

[chimera]

I may be mixed up, but am not a monster (although some liberals think I am)...

[Sloth]

I don't suppose you'd care to summarize this "simple explanation"? I don't see how she could be biologically unrelated to her biological sister's biological children.

[MHGinTN]

Think we ought to ping beavus?

[_Jim]

What I would like to know,is, how do the 'intelligent design' people explain anomolies like this?

WHEREAS I believe God "Intelligently designed" the entire universe all the way down to the ways that 'matter' interacts on an atomic and subatomic level (and at some point instilled within man an immortal soul making him most profoundly different than animals on that level) -

- the 'intelligent design' folks, per se, seem to contend that nature somehow obeys a different and most obscure set of physical laws when dealing *only* with the flesh (corporal level) of man ...

[MEGoody]

"He?"

Yes.

[John H K]

Possible explanation for multiple personality disorders or schizophrenia?

Basically pretty much all Multiple Personality Disorders are people who suffered horrific continuous sexual/physical abuse as children.

Schizophrenia isn't like MPD at all, really, and isn't "multiple people" or "multiple brains" or anything like that.

[Qwinn]

"I don't suppose you'd care to summarize this "simple explanation"? I don't see how she could be biologically unrelated to her biological sister's biological children."

I would -hope- a paternity (maternity?) test is able to differentiate a child-mother relationship from a child-aunt relationship. It's not like no one ever cheated with a spouse's sibling.

Qwinn

[MEGoody]

"the 'intelligent design' folks, per se, seem to contend that nature somehow obeys a different and most obscure set of physical laws when dealing *only* with the flesh (corporal level) of man ..."

What physical laws do you think they believe are different for humans?