I thought this only happened in in-vitro situations.

I think this can happen to anyone, not just twins. I'm sure we all know of brothers and sisters who are much lighter or much darker than one another, who have different features. All siblings don't get the same genes. My mom had blonde hair and gray eyes when she was born, she looked white. People thought my grandmother was lying when she said that my mother was her daughter. On the other hand, my uncle, her brother, is dark. Did the article say that they were identical or fraternal? I don't remember. If fraternal then that's another reason that this could happen (me being a fraternal twin myself :D )

Wow:eek:...thanks for the insight!:D

This happened to one of our church members. She was light skinned, with gray eyes and wavy hair. One Sunday her sister showed up. The sister was dark skinned, with brown eyes and kinky hair. Everyone was in shocked when she introduced her as her fraternal twin sister. It turns out the darker sister had a psycological complex because of their differences while growing up and ended up on drugs. Now the lighter skinned sister is married to a light skinned brother. They have 3 children (two girls and one boy). The son and oldest daughter are pale with gray eyes and wavy hair, the youngest daughter is light brown skinned color with darker eyes, and thicker hair. Both girls have hair down their backs but the younger one is questioning why she is the darkest one in the immediate family.

I guess it all boils down to dominant and recessive genes. Sigh, reminds me of my biology class in undergrad:( :mad: I used to snore so loudly in lecture...surprised I retained any information.

I vaguely remember being told
 

...From science class in high school that two brown eyed parents CANT make a blue eyed child. But two blue eyed parents can make a brown eyed child. But if two brown eyed parents make a blue eyed child, papa needs a blood test.

Re: I vaguely remember being told
 

I don't buy that because what if the brown-eyed child is the product of two blue-eyed parents? The child would have those blue-eyed genes as a part of his/her DNA. I have a student who is the product of two brown-eyed parents and she has big beautiful blue eyes like her paternal grandmother.

Okay, I work in Warren County NJ, so you know I had to look it up. This is about a 40 minute drive from my job. I hope I never have a client that lives on this street.

Re: Re: I vaguely remember being told
 

I think I had it backwards. Two blue eyed parents cant have brown eyed children
http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=2

If the twins are fraternal, then that is possible.

Where is my Punnett square when I need it? lol

Are blue eyes recessive or dominant? The only way a recessive gene is expressed is if the person gets both recessive genes for that trait. But I can't remember if blue trumps brown or if its the other way around.

paging AKA_Monet, our GC genetics expert. :)

Brown eyes are dominant. Blue is recessive.

The twin girls are fraternal, so any combination could have come out.

I loved the genetics part of my biology classes, both in HS and in college. :)

so if each parent had a dominant gene and a recessive gene, B and b respectively, the combos would be like this:

bb, BB, bB, Bb

expressed as:

bb = blue eyes
BB = brown eyes
bB = brown eyes (brown trumps blue)
Bb = brown eyes

So the child has a 1 in 4 chance of having blue eyes, and a 3 in 4 chance of having brown eyes.

LOL! That's going to make me have nightmares ^^^^ I remember that from high school!

I don't know - when someone sent it to me, the first thing I thought was that some hospital, somewhere had screwed up big time. Then I saw the word "midwife" and was like ......oh. Both of them are ADORABLE though. I could just eat up their little cheeks. :D

Nikki, you just took me back. LOL