1. The Mystery of Twins By: Mirella Cabrera Psychology Per.7 Mc Elmoyl

2. Why are scientists interested in twins who were separated at birth? Scientists are interested in twins who were separated at birth because they observe the many similarities even though they don’t live together. They like to focus on their environment, traits, genes, personality, abilities, intelligence, and many other characteristics that a normal person would have just that this time two people that are alike have it. For example, psychologist Thomas Bouchard studied James and James who were separated at 3 weeks of age.

3. What steps should be taken by scientists studying twins to avoid possible invasions of privacy? First of all, a scientist should begin his or her studies by asking for permission to use that person as an experiment or simply just to ask questions of their personal life. Then, continue with the study by using only the information given by the person; if the one twin don’t know about the other it is impossible to gather much information because a scientist must take opinions from both sides or known better, both twins.

4. Identical Twins Twins who come from one fertilized egg share the same placenta throughout the 40 weeks of pregnancy. These twins will have the same heredity which means that they will look the same. Because they develop from a single fertilized egg (a single zygote), identical twins are called monozygotic.

5. 4 different ways that identical twins can develop in the uterus… 1.Dichorionic-Diamniotic: Twins that have two separate chorions and amniotic sacs. 2.Monochorionic-Diamniotic: Twins that share the same placenta and usually have two amniotic sacs. 3.Monochorionic-Monoamniotic: These twins also share the same placenta which can lead to the babies umbilical cords tangling within one another. 4.Conjoined Twins: Twins who are born stuck together and share the same organs.

6. Fraternal Twins Twins who come from two different eggs which are fertilized by two different sperm cells. Their genes are not more similar than the ones of brothers or sisters. “Since fraternal twins are from separate eggs, like brothers or sisters from single births, they share only 50% of their genes.” Fraternal twins are called dizygotic.

7. Virtual Twins According to psychologist Dr. Nancy L. Segal, virtual twins are unrelated kids born within nine months between each other and enter a family, through birth or adoption. She states, “Raised together essentially from birth, or at least since infancy, virtual twins may be genetic strangers, but they share an environment from an early point in life.”

8. Influence of the Environment Due to twins who are separated at birth, the environment has a big impact in their way of being and acting. Claire M.A. Haworth, Philip Dale, and Robert Plomin did a study and on twins and stated, “Environmental influences were mainly of the non-shared variety, suggesting that children from the same family experience school environments differently.”

9. Interaction of Genes Genes interact within the twins in such way, or so it is said by Kristen Jacobson; PhD, “Other studies of monozygotic twins have identified variations in DNA methylation levels in certain target gene prompter regions.” American Psychological Association has concluded that, “Not only are both genes and environments important for both normal and abnormal human development, but genes and environment operate interactively to produce both risk and resilience to specific behavioral and psychiatric disorders.”

10. Due to the New York Times article, “Although there has been wide press coverage of pairs of twins reared apart who met for the first time in the course of the study, the personality results are the first significant scientific data to be announced.” What this means is that the genes in twins are quite the same. Their personality traits, emotions, intelligence, etc. Between genes and environment, genes take a major role in determining personality traits because you are born with that character.

11. Environment within we all live in depends on the way we act upon many things. Twins personality traits, emotions, and intelligence mainly depend on their environment. It is known to be the main cause in which personality is different in every person but not quite different in twins.

12. University of Minnesota Study of identical twins who were raised in different environments. In 1979, the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research (MICTAR) began a study to determine the degree to which heredity influences personality traits and intelligence.

13. “Two Twins Separated at Birth Live Almost Identical Lives” In this article, it talks about two twin boys that were born in Ohio and were then given to adoption being only 3 weeks old. They were both adopted by different parents who lived 50 miles apart. Both parents knew that their child had a twin, but what they didn’t know was that the other twin was actually alive. It states that, “Both boys were independently named James by their adopted parents. Neither knew he had a twin. Both were great at math and bad at spelling.” During their childhood, they both had a dog named toy. While growing up, both became sheriffs, bought little blue Chevy's, got migraines, married a women named Linda which then they both got divorced and married a women named Betty. Once they turned 39, the record search program reunited them.

14. Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe These two twins were separated as babies. In the 1930’s in Europe, Stohr grew up in Germany and joined the Hitler Youth while Yufe was raised as a Jew and moved to Israel. In the article it says, “Yet, despite being as different as two human beings can be, when they met in their 50’s they found that they spoke alike, liked the same foods, and shared oddly specific habits, like wearing rubber bands on their wrists or flushing the toilet before using it.”

15. Sara and Julie Curry These two twins are known as virtual twins; Sara being adopted at birth. The parents of these girls had tried so many times to have a child of their own but just didn’t seem to work out. They decided to adopt a child being Sara and after adopting her, a month later, their mom became pregnant of Julie. The problem was that as they grew older, their genes began to play a major role due to their way of being and personality traits. For example, Sara goes to church; Julie don’t, Sara loves to talk; Julie is really quiet, and Sara wears glasses; Julie wears contacts.

16. Resources "Two Twins Separated at Birth Live Almost Identical Lives." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. "5 Real-Life Stories of Twins." Cracked.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. "AirTalk." KPCC. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. NCBI. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013. "Considering Interactions between Genes, Environments, Biology, and Social Context." Web. 05 Nov. 2013.