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Twincredibles 9pm, Monday 10th October on BBC2 or on BBC iplayer.
October 2011
Twincredibles is a film that is being shown as part of BBC Two's Mixed Race Britain Season and follows five sets of twins, from toddlers through to adults, to create a surprising and compelling story about the journey of mixed race Britain. The stories of all these twins throw a new and fascinating light on how brothers and sisters who are similar in so many other ways lead different lives because of their skin colour.
Dr Jim Wilson was called upon to explain how it was possible for one twin to be black and the other white. To illustrate this he carried out some genetic testing on Shirley, the mother of the youngest set of twins, Hope and Leo. Their father is white and their mother black but the genetic ancestry testing showed that Shirley was in fact half European and half African by blood, which means she carries both skin lightening and skin darkening genetic variants. It is a lottery which of these she gave to each of her children - Hope has by chance inherited skin lightening variants and Leo got skin-darkening variants. If Shirley had one hundred children they would show a beautiful spectrum of colour from light to dark, it just so happens that Hope and Leo are from opposite ends of this spectrum.
Links
- Dr Jim Wilson: Centre for Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh
- Black and White twins: The Guardian
- What makes a mixed race twin white or black? BBC news
STARLAB Scientific Image Prize for unit: November 2011
Congratulations to Dr Anna Klingseisen, who's image was chosen for the 2012 Calendar Competition run by the lab equipment supplier STARLAB UK.
The image was entered by the unit's Design and Publication Manager, Craig Nicol on behalf of Anna, Career Development Fellow, Medical & Developmental Genetics within Dr Andrew Jackson's lab.
The competition rules stated that images could be of anything, but should be predominantly blue and yellow in colour to stand the best chance of winning. The image titled 'zebrafish embryo, 9 hours post fertilisation at 90% epiboly. Embryonic cell layers spread out from the animal pole to engulf the yolk. Cell membranes of the enveloping layer are stained for beta-Actin (green) and all nuclei with DAPI (blue)'.
This successful photo will feature in the printed 2012 STARLAB UK Calendar alongside the other winning entries.
Links