Bi-paternal Twins with Different Fathers ~ Twins in Cinema !!

Sure you know the Zodiac sign Gemini  - mythologically considered twins. A twin is one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy. Twins can either be monozygotic ("identical"), meaning that they develop from one zygote that splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic ("fraternal") because they develop from two separate eggs that are fertilized by two separate sperm. Can you easily identify the identical looking twins whom you know ?  There are so many stories and myths associated with ‘twins’ – strangely, many Cinemas would show that the twins would react for the other – i.e., when villain hits one, the pain would be felt by the other remaining elsewhere !! [Nagarjuna in Hello Brother]  - there are many comedy scenes shown as arising out of the mistaken identity of the twins……. ‘Apoorva Sahodarargal’ the Kamal starrer was the story of twins – one normal and one dwarf; Jeans was another;  the Shankar Science fiction written by legendary Sujata - Enthiran [Robot] directed by Shankar featured Rajinikanth in dual roles as a scientist and an android robot.   In one of the scenes, Aishwarya Rai would be preparing for her examination in Medical science and Chitti would revise the minutest details astonishingly.  -  that was about monozygotic twins.  Twins Days is a festival for biological twins that takes  place every summer since 1976 in Twinsburg, Ohio.  It is the largest annual gathering of twins in the world, and draws thousands of participants from all over the United States and elsewhere in the world. The event, which takes place on the first full weekend in August, routinely attracts about 2,000 pairs of twins. Back home, in God’s own Country, in a remote tropical village of Kodinhi, in Kerala,  there are  almost six times as many twins born than the global average. In 2008 alone 15 pairs of twins were born in the village out of 300 healthy deliveries and this year is expected to top that number. Twins, may not look alike; may not be born at the same time; there can be difference in time. One of the famous twins in Cricket is Mark and Steve Waugh who were not identical. Hamish and James Marshall who played for New Zealand were identical – though the comparison stops there.
Twins will share a common birth day …… is the common accepted theory – but – not necessarily.  They can be born minutes apart ~ and that could fall in two different days / months / years even !   In July 2012, Mother Donna Keenan, 28,  went into labor while watching Italy play Spain in the Euro 2012 final with her partner and his parents at their home in the Northumberland market town of Wooler. She  started having contractions in Northumberland and gave birth to son Dylan in the living room of his grandparents’ house; later she was then taken to hospital in Scotland and gave birth to daughter Hannah.  The babies were born in different countries !! Now read this report in Times of India of date.  Vietnam has identified an extremely rare case of bi-paternal twins -twins with different fathers -a professor at a DNA testing lab in Hanoi. A set of twins born to a Vietnamese couple, whose names have not been released, were recently taken for testing because of stark differences in the children's appearances, according to local reports.
“This is rare not only for Vietnam, but for the world,” president o the Genetic Association of Vietnam, said, explaining that the two children had different fathers but the same mother. This can happen if two eggs from the same mother are fertilised by sperm from two different men during separate acts of sexual intercourse within the same ovulation period. A woman's egg has a life-span of between 12 and 48 hours, he said, while a sperm can last for between seven and 10 days. It is during this overlap that it is possible for two eggs to be fertilised. According to the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper, the Vietnamese husband requested genetic testing at the Hanoi lab to determine whether he was the biological father of both his wife's twins. The 34-year-old's relatives pressured him to take the test because one of the babies looked strikingly different from him and the other child, the report said. The result from the tests indicated that the man was related to only one of the babies. Ruling out a hospital mixup, his wife was found to be the biological mother of both children, Tuoi Tre reported. According to Dan Tri on line news site, the twins were of the same sex, born on the same day just a few hours apart, but look completely different. The report said the twins are now two years old and one of them has thick, wavy hair while the other has thin, straight hair. Another rare case of bipaternal twins was reported in US last year, when a court ruled that a man was only required to pay child support for one girl in a set of twins after DNA tests proved he was not the father of both. Strange are the ways of people.. !!! With regards – S. Sampathkumar. 9^th Mar 2o16