Unless you've been living under a rock or are really good at focusing on your schoolwork, you've seen this (super adorable) video:
Identical twins have been used for studies of environmental effects on development for a long time because they have identical genes. In my analytical genomics course we learned however that identical twins may not actually be identical genetically! This is because although the genes that are expressed may be identical, the factors regulating their expression have been found to be significantly different. This brings to light how much we DON'T know about the code that shapes us and is quite exciting to think about all the new things we can learn (oy, that sounded reeaaaallly nerdy). Anyway, an interesting implication of that study is that all the previous tests that looked at behavioural effects on development may be defunct because they rely on an underlying assumption that twins are genetically identical!Okay now go and watch the video again because it is super cute.
xoCLxiCKoxoTHOxoxSEoxAoxDSoxoxoxo
Epigenetics for the win!
ReplyDeleteThat video is impossibly adorable
ReplyDeleteDid you learn anything about twins developing their own intra-personal language (like above)?
haha, no not in that class but check out this article, it was a good read: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/toddler-twins-secret-language-or-babble/?smid=fb-nytimes
ReplyDeletepoint of interest:
"Dr. Camarata says the video is rich with examples of how children develop language. It’s filled with canonical babbling that sounds like speech because it uses vowels, consonants and syllables to mimic words. Although most healthy babies go through the same phase of language development, most of the time the conversation is one-sided because they are interacting primarily with parents or older siblings. What’s special about the twins’ exchange, he notes, is that each baby has a peer with whom to practice language."
Did you get to pick the ads? Ad for Gene Cloning? haha .. well done buba!!!!
ReplyDeleteholy crap. Best video ever.
ReplyDelete