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Is there a way to show which identical twin is the father of a child?

It wouldn’t be easy to determine which of identical twin brothers was the father of a particular child, but there are ways

18 January 2023

HBATA9 Portrait of identical adult male twins with red hair and beards on sidewalk

Eugenio Marongiu/Cultura Creative RF/Alamy

If identical twin brothers are each potentially the father of the same child, is there a way to determine, genetically, which is the father?

Antoon Pelsser
Maastricht, The Netherlands

In a recent Dutch court case, a person suspected of rape claimed that his identical twin brother was the perpetrator. A careful DNA analysis revealed a few differences in the DNA between the brothers. And the DNA profile of the suspected twin matched with that found on the victim.

Gabriel Néve
Aix-Marseille University, France

From one generation to the next, there are always some small changes, called mutations, among the…

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