Pharmacy Daily | DISPENSARY CORNER 10 March 16

A PAIR of twins in Vietnam has been found to have two different fathers, in an extremely rare case of what is technically known as ‘heteropaternal superfecundation’. The twins had their DNA tested after their family noticed they looked quite different, with the Hanoi-based Vietnam Genetic Association saying the results were “100% correct”. According to spokesman Professor Le Dinh Luong there are less than ten known cases of twins with different fathers, the BBC reported. The phenomenon occurs when a woman produces multiple eggs in a single ovulation and they are fertilised by two different men within a short period of time. Interestingly while it’s very rare in humans, superfecundation is common in animals such as cats and dogs which sometimes produce litters in which every puppy or kitten has a different sire. AND perhaps on a similarly promiscuous topic, an intriguing study published in the Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal has described how female flies save semen to influence later offspring. Researchers found if a male neriid fly, either large or small, mated with a female fly before she was fertile, he’d pass his sperm along, but the immature eggs wouldn’t be fertilised. Two weeks later, if the female neriid fly copulated with a second male once her eggs had matured and laid eggs fertilised by his sperm, the resulting offspring would be closer in size to the first male. Scientists attributed the occurrence to the chemicals in the first male’s seminal fluid, which can play a role in early embryonic development.

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