h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http;//www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A369434

Twins - a short, concise entry - not much more to add I think.

Hi there!

A bit too short an entry, I would say. You should go into some depth in your wording, without referring to outside h2g2 sites. A few suggestions:
- do they share the same fate, have the same likes/dislikes even if they are split in their early days (I know there are enough stories about this, like brothers meeting after some 30 years, with the same type of eyeglasses, cars, and haircuts)
- do they have some mental connection, eg: do they realize if their sibling is lucky, has been hurt & such,
- a few words about their relationship, ie: do they see each other as competitors from the first day of their lives,
- should/shouldn't parents try to let them have their very own identities, and (or not) put them into the same clothes (a former colleague of mine has twins and educated them to be two very distinctive persons, and they chose to *play being twins* at their own will from time to time).

Just my suggestions anyway, but you should give some additional thoughts in the entry.

keep up the good work!

Bossel

I wrote a newspaper article on twin athletes and for the most part, they tended to like individual sports like track, tennis, wrestling, cross country.

A couple of psychologists I talked to said this was because they have a need to be seen as individuals and not part of a group since they're always lumped together as a pair.

Rather interesting piece.

Of course, copyright restrictions prohibit my re-publishing it here.

Anyway, this is a good start, but I reckon it still needs some more info. Keep at it!

- X

You should mention the term "fraternal" for twins that come from separate eggs. The technical term for the identical sort is "mono-zygotic" but there may be another common term.

I believe that a tendency to have fraternal twins runs in the family (of the mother) while the other sort, while much rarer, are equally likely for everybody. I think the figure is about 1 set of identical twins in every 5000 births.

Since identical twins share the same genetic material, they always the same sex. Fraternal twins have a 50% chance of being the same sex.

This next bit is something I am not sure of: you might like to check it out.

If both babies are the same sex, it is difficult to tell at birth which sort of twins they are. They may look the same even if they are not "identical". One way of telling is to count the placentas. If there is only one placenta, then they must be identical. If there are two placentas, they may be fraternal, or they may be identical.

Gnomon's bit on not being able to tell if same-sex twins are indentical or not is true. It's not even unheard of for a pair of twins to suddenly discover as adults that they're fraternal rather than identical (as they had earlier believed).

A random point that I find rather amusing is that there is a city in the US (in Ohio, actually) called Twinsburg. They have an annual "Twins Day" festival, which has international attendance. The festival has an easy to find website which has all sorts of information. I had some friends in elementary school who were entered in the "most identical twins" competition there every year.


Mikey

Hey, Ad & Trees --

Still wanting to pursue the peer review process on this one? If so, what did you think of the suggestions made by various people above?


Mikey

Thanks for keeping an eye on it Mikey - I am in the process of adding more to the entry, but for the moment I'm keeping it on my local machine. I've also been working on another entry, which has just been `edited` - now that's through the eye of the needle, I've got some time to focus on this one again.

Do you have any particular interests in twins or in adding anything to the article?
Ad

I'd be willing to write you a paragraph on the Twins Day festival I mentioned if you like...


Mikey

Yeah, that would be great, thanks. I have seen it on a documentary on tv. It's hard to believe, but when you see it, it's unreal. All these people coming together because they share the same birth with someone else. I think I'm right in saying that that festival is actually more popular with idents than frats?

i agree with Bossel in that its a bit too short. are you planning to finish it soon? it *has* been awhile. and maybe something about *being* a twin, realizing this may be a bit difficult if you are not one.

Oh, it's you Ad. Hi!

I have written two bad entries on twins, http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A535510 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A477957

Maybe they could be combined with Ad's somehow if they say some stuff he hasn't mentioned.

NIwt

Thanks Niwt - I'll read them (I haven't had time due to work committments) and include all the parts that are good. I should get back to you. I wonder if we can have the entry as credited with both of us?

(ps. just become a scout, so will have even less time to write it now - sorry )

Oh well done scout!

I've got more I haven't put on yet.

Oh well done scout!

I've got more I haven't put on yet.

Excellent scientific stuff, although I think the last paragraph on A535510 is a bit over -generalised. How do you know this? Is there evidence to back this up (I haven't come across it yet - but it may be out there).

I agree with you; the DZ twins that I know don't get on as well as MZ, but they still seem to get on better than other siblings. Obviously, this evidence is just empirical (and therefore not that good).

Where do we need to take this further? I think we need to move on from the science now and look at the experience.

Not being a twin myself, I really can't claim to know much, but what I say I find out from my aunts & grandmother and twins at school and other places. I don't like the last paragraph, I wrote it in a hurry.

*wonders if anyone else is still here*

I'm still here, but am not entirely sure what's up with this entry. Is someone planning on taking the two entries and combining them into one?


Mikey

Ad already has. My bits are very badly written but his are good
It's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A369434 and it's longer now but a bit repetitive I think.

I still think there's a lot to do - my part is badly written too. Also, there's a lot of other material that could/should be put in.

Perhaps we could send this to the writers workshop?