Reuben has a twin sister Floren, but you probably wouldn't believe him until you read this story. See, Rueben is five-year-old and Floren is only seven-weeks old.

Here's the story of twins born 5 years apart:

Even at his young age Reuben is aware of the special relationship he has with his seven-week-old sister, although his parents said it would be a while before he fully understands.

''He knows that she's been in the freezer – he likes to say she has been in the freezer with the chips and the chicken – so he is sort of aware that she is his twin, but obviously he doesn't really understand how it's all worked really,'' his mother said.

''They do look very similar. Reuben was just a bigger version of Floren when he was born, so certainly there are similarities physically.

''She does look like a mini version of him really.''

The Telegraph has the story: Link (Photo: Ben Birchall)

Once, when Wyatt appeared in a sequin shirt and his mother’s heels, his father said: “You don’t want to wear that.’’

“Yes, I do,’’ Wyatt replied.

“Dad, you might as well face it,’’ Wayne recalls Jonas saying. “You have a son and a daughter.’’

That early declaration marked, as much as any one moment could, the beginning of a journey that few have taken, one the Maineses themselves couldn’t have imagined until it was theirs. The process of remaking a family of identical twin boys into a family with one boy and one girl has been heartbreaking and harrowing and, in the end, inspiring – a lesson in the courage of a child, a child who led them, and in the transformational power of love.

Nicole, who has been living and attending school as a girl for years, underwent treatment to delay puberty and is looking forward to surgery and hormone treatment to complete her gender reassignment. The twins’ story raises questions about identity: not only do they have the same genes, but they have shared the same environment since they were conceived.

The Maineses decided to tell their story, they say, in order to help fight the deep stigma against transgender youth, and to ease the path for other such children who, without help, often suffer from depression, anxiety, and isolation.

The Boston Globe has the story of Nicole’s physical transformation as well as the reactions of her family, schoolmates, and others. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)

Minnesotastan found this painting from 1617 and was intrigued by the swaddling clothes and by the difference in color of the two children. A little research turned up the theory that these twins suffered from Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). From Wikipedia:

As a result of sharing a single placenta, the blood supplies of monochorionic twin fetuses can become connected, so that they share blood circulation: although each fetus uses its own portion of the placenta, the connecting blood vessels within the placenta allow blood to pass from one twin to the other. Depending on the number, type and direction of the interconnecting blood vessels (anastomoses), blood can be transferred disproportionately from one twin (the “donor”) to the other (the “recipient”). The transfusion causes the donor twin to have decreased blood volume, retarding the donor’s development and growth, and also decreased urinary output, leading to a lower than normal level of amniotic fluid (becoming oligohydramnios). The blood volume of the recipient twin is increased, which can strain the fetus’s heart and eventually lead to heart failure, and also higher than normal urinary output, which can lead to excess amniotic fluid (becoming polyhydramnios).

Whether such twins survive usually depends on how early in the pregnancy the syndrome is diagnosed. Minnesotastan also found out who the children in the painting were. Link

The dog and girls now all have their injections together.

The Hendry family had spotted a newspaper appeal about Roxy and decided to visit her at the charity’s animal rescue and rehoming centre at Drumoak, where she had been since July.

Mrs Hendry said: “We originally saw an appeal for Roxy in our local paper about six weeks ago but our staffy, Buzz, had recently passed away and we felt it was too soon.

“Then we saw another appeal a few weeks later and thought it must be fate. We decided to go and see her that day and just fell in love with her.

Link -via Arbroath

When officials with the Indiana Office of Inspector General interviewed Athalone-Afrika about the allegations, she claimed her evil twin sister had stolen her identity.

“It’s pretty clear we didn’t find any truth in the evil twin sister defense,” said Deputy Prosecutor Barb Trathen. “When you have a person who not only has a higher income than reported, but who has a husband’s income and actually an additional outside business that they are running, that seems unfair.”

Link -via Dave Barry

Previously: Evil Twins from 60s Television

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

The “evil twin” is a very old plot device in many forms of entertainment. Edgar Allan Poe used the device in the short story William Wilson. The story (almost a perfect pattern to the much later “evil twins” of television) deals with two twin, one moral, one amoral. The evil twin keeps doing his bad deeds and the good twin is good and ethical -and, of course, the evil twin gets the good twin into lots of trouble. In a bizarre Poe twist, the evil twin happens to have the same name as the good twin (William Wilson) and he was born on the same day (January 19th -Poe’s birthday).

Evil twins were portrayed in the movies such as 1939′s The Man in the Iron Mask (based on the Alexander Dumas novel) and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) in which Charlie plays a nice Jewish barber, who has history’s ultimate “evil twin” Adenoid Hynkel (an obvious satire of Adolph Hitler).

Comic books have probably had more different and varied evil twins than any other entertainment genre, with Superman, Batman, Robin, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and almost every other classic superhero (or superheroine) worth their salt being plagued by their own “evil twin.”

OK, in doing research regarding TV’s evil twin characters, I really didn’t find that much material out there, so, I not only looked over the limited data available, but I racked my own memory of all the many “evil twins” on all the countless TV shows I have seen over the past 40 or so years. As far as I know, I believe the very first ever “evil twin” in TV series history was seen on The Adventures of Superman, a series I never missed as a kid, starring George Reeves, my first ever hero.

In 1953, Reeves played a dual role (he actually played three different roles, if you count Superman and Clark Kent as two) of a criminal named “Boulder,” who dressed up as Superman (complete with a bullet-proof vest) and extorts money from local merchants (I mean, who is going to turn down Superman?). Reeves, a brilliant and talented actor, never relished playing the role of Superman, and supposedly this was one of his favorite episodes.

“Evil twins” weren’t all that prevalent in the 1950s, but in the ’60s they were to skyrocket and achieve their greatest fame. In a 1960 episode of the popular Western Bonanza, called “The Outlaws,” the “evil twin that is portrayed in an episode that is a stretch” first comes to light. The odds against anyone having an actual “evil twin” who is not related to them in any way are, of course, pretty steep. But in this episode, two outlaw brothers who look exactly like both Hoss and Little Joe (Dan Blocker and Michael Landon) and use the old “switch identities” routine on the Cartwright brothers.

Bonanza, by the way, is TV’s all-time “evil twin” TV show -you’d never guess that, would you? “Alias Joe Cartwright,” a 1964 episode, features a second Little Joe “evil twin” so Little Joe Cartwright may be the only character in TV history to have two completely different evil twins in two completely different episodes. As if that wasn’t enough, the third Cartwright brother Adam (Pernell Roberts) is pitted against his own evil twin (whose name is Tom Burns) in another Bonanza episode. So, three of the four main characters in Bonanza had evil twins. That’s a mind-boggling 75% “evil twin” percentage!

The only show even close to Bonanza in evil twins is Gilligan’s Island. Seven castaways stranded on a remote, uncharted desert island, right? Nonetheless, three (count ‘em -three!) of the seven castaways will be plagued by evil twins: those being Gilligan (a Russian spy), Mr. Howell (by a guy who just wants to spend all his money), and Ginger (by Eva Grubb, a homely girl who becomes glamorous after Ginger gives her a makeover and goes to Hollywood to take over Ginger’s identity). So, Bob Denver, Jim Backus, and Tina Louise all got to chew up the scenery as an “evil twin” (that’s three of seven characters, almost a 50% evil twin ratio, second only to the aforementioned Bonanza). Of course, not only do the three evil twins somehow find Gilligan’s Island, but they also each managed to escape and make it back safely to the mainland.

In one of TV’s evil twin’s strangest coincidences, two TV Westerns both featured “evil twin” episodes with the very same title, “Deadly Image,” which were both aired within a year of each other. The Maverick episode was in 1961, and The Rifleman episode was in 1962.

Bewitched, a show I never watched, featured Elizabeth Montgomery playing the lead, a witch named Samantha, plus her cousin Serena, who is actually more mischievous than evil, and was a recurring role in the series.

Following the Bewitched pattern, I Dream of Jeannie, another of the classic ’60s fantasy series, starred Barbara Eden as Jeannie, who also played Jeannie’s evil twin sister(also named Jeannie). Jeannie (referred to as “Jeannie II” in the show’s scripts), like Montgomery’s Serena, was Barbara Eden in a black wig. The Jeannie II character became hugely popular in I Dream of Jeannie and she was featured in nine different episodes. Barbara Eden’s portrayal of Jeannie II is brilliant an extremely convincing (she reportedly received lots of fan mail asking “Who’s the actress playing Jeannie’s sister on the show?” Major Nelson (Larry Hagman) also got his own evil twin in a two-part I Dream of Jeannie episode (as another ’60s staple bad guy, a Russian spy).

An episode of another ’60s fantasy series, My Favorite Martian, features Tim (Bill Bixby) having his own evil twin, who, like every other evil twin, wreaks havoc before being stopped in the final climactic scene.

Lost in Space had an evil twin of Commander John Robinson (Guy Williams).

Even The Flintstones, the most popular animated show of the ’60s, had twin Fred ad Barney doubles. Created by the Great Gazoo, the twin Fred can only say “Yes, yes, yes,” and the twin Barney can only say “No, no, no.” Like some supposedly evil twins, they are really evil just mindless robots who get the real Fred and Barney into trouble.

Star Trek had an episode, “Mirror, Mirror,” where the entire crew of the Enterprise each has their own evil twin counterpart. Leonard Nimoy plays Mr. Spock’s double, complete with a goatee (a later “evil twin guy” staple). Star Trek fans will point out that the evil twins are not really all that evil and a few of them are actually more friendly and docile, and in Spock’s case, more intensely logical, than their earthly counterparts.

Micky Dolenz of The Monkees played himself and his own evil twin in the Monkees episode “Alias Micky Dolenz.” Mocky played that evil twin staple -a gangster. (Hmmm, maybe their evil twins played the  Monkees instruments?)

Interestingly, the ’60s TV series you might expect to have the most “evil twins” would probably be Batman, being how it was so campy and was based on a comic book. But few evil twins episodes came out of the legendary series. The only know evil twin Batman episodes used Liberace as “Chandell” or “Fingers,” a great piano player. Chandell had an evil twin brother named Harry, who was played, of course, by Liberace, too. Although Chandell was a villian, he was actually forced into becoming one by Harry, who blackmailed him. The Liberace/Chandell episodes were actually the highest-ever rated episodes of the Batman series.

Twins joined at the head — the medical term is craniopagus — are one in 2.5 million, of which only a fraction survive. The way the girls’ brains formed beneath the surface of their fused skulls, however, makes them beyond rare: their neural anatomy is unique, at least in the annals of recorded scientific literature. Their brain images reveal what looks like an attenuated line stretching between the two organs, a piece of anatomy their neurosurgeon, Douglas Cochrane of British Columbia Children’s Hospital, has called a thalamic bridge, because he believes it links the thalamus of one girl to the thalamus of her sister. The thalamus is a kind of switchboard, a two-lobed organ that filters most sensory input and has long been thought to be essential in the neural loops that create consciousness. Because the thalamus functions as a relay station, the girls’ doctors believe it is entirely possible that the sensory input that one girl receives could somehow cross that bridge into the brain of the other. One girl drinks, another girl feels it.

The New York Times magazine has an extensive article on Tatiana and Krista, covering their lives, medical condition, and the very rare opportunity they may present to learn about how the human brain works. Link | video

(Image credit: Stephanie Sinclair/VII, for The New York Times)

Dr. Timothy Kim was back and forth delivering both babies.

“They were kind enough to put rooms next to each other, so not so much running. I’ve been doing this for 12 years and I never heard of twins having a baby on the same day,” said Dr. Kim.

Amy gave birth to baby Claire and Allison gave birth to baby Garrett. The sisters both married their high school sweethearts six months apart to the day. They say they didn’t plan on getting pregnant at the same

Only time will tell how alike the cousins who share a January 12th birthday will be. Link (with video) -via Arbroath

Every year, twins from all over the country gather in Twinsburg, Ohio to celebrate what sets them apart from those born by themselves. National Geographic was there earlier this month to document the festivities, in text and in five photo galleries, plus a memory game where you try to match sets of twins who attended the festival. Link

(Image credit:  J. Kyle Keener/National Geographic)

Moody Gardens on Galveston Island in Texas welcomed rare twin baby pygmy lorises, a male and a female, born March 22nd. The pygmy loris is not an easy species to breed in captivity, but the twins’ mother Luyen has been very attentive to the babies. The lorises will go on display to the public when a new facility is finished in 2011. See more photos and a video at Zooborns. Link -via Fark

…perceived age was significantly associated with survival, even after adjustment for chronological age, sex, and rearing environment. Perceived age was still significantly associated with survival after further adjustment for physical and cognitive functioning. The likelihood that the older looking twin of the pair died first increased with increasing discordance in perceived age within the twin pair—that is, the bigger the difference in perceived age within the pair, the more likely that the older looking twin died first.

The photo embedded above is a computer-generated composite of 10 pairs of twins.  “Left hand image represents twins who looked younger for their age (average perceived age 64, range 57-69) than those represented by right hand image (average perceived age 74, range 70-78).”

There are a variety of factors which may be instrumental in this relationship, including smoking status, body mass index, and sun exposure.  These and other relevant factors are discussed at the link.  The study was conducted in twins to minimize variables, but the conclusions may extend beyond twins to the general population.

Link to fulltext BMJ article, via the BBC.

National Geographic video link.

Last year Neatorama offered a link to a Telegraph article about a remote Brazilian village with, in Miss Cellania’s words, a “bazillion Brazilian” twins.  Now Candido Godol will be the subject of an upcoming documentary in a National Geographic’s Explorer program.

The statistics are jaw-dropping: 44 pairs of twins in 80 families in a 1.5-square-mile area – a rate 1000% above the global average.  Some scientists attribute this to a “founder effect” since many of these Brazilians are descendants of German immigrants who clustered in this remote outback area.  Others wonder about environmental contamination or simple chance.  The National Geographic program will apparently focus on the more tabloid-worthy “Joseph Mengele-was-here” hypothesis.

Via Reddit, where there is a discussion thread.

Her mammoth brood now comprises Patrick, 23, Stephen, 13, Malachai, 12, Peppermint, 11, Echo, 10, Eli, nine, Rogue, eight, Frodo, seven, Morpheus, five, Artemis, four, Blackbird, three, Baudelaire, two, and nine-month-old Voorhees.

No word yet on what number 14 will be named. Link -via I Am Bored

(image credit: Flickr user Mick 0)

Local vet Barrie Fleming, who advised the farm’s owners, Roger Olver and Tanya Dalton, on the hatching, said they had “every reason to be excited by the birth” as it was a very rare occurrence.

The BBC has the video. Link -via Arbroath

“Without access to detailed biochemical analysis equipment I cannot say for certain what the reason for the twinning is, but I feel that it is something to do with what the villagers eat and drink.

“If that is the case then maybe whatever is causing this exceptional level of twinning can be bottled and provide help for infertile couples.” Categorising the twin phenomenon as a naturally occurring anomaly, Dr Sribiju has ruled out genetic factors as the cause due to the localised nature of the village.

He also dismisses any suggestion that the unusual level of twins could be caused by an unknown pollutant pointing to the high number of healthy twins born without any deformities.

Link -via Digg

Preciously at Neatorama: the village of Brazilian Twins.

For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed.

But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town.

The normal rate of twin births is one out of every 80 pregnancies. Link -via Reddit

Twin brother Tarrance was born a bit earlier — 26 minutes to be exact.

Tarrance Kyle Griffin Jr. was born at 11:51 p.m. Wednesday, followed by Tariq Lamont Griffin at 12:17 a.m. Thursday.

That means the boys have the unique distinction of having been born on different days, months and years.

Link – Thanks Tiffany!

Alison said: “I was shocked when I first found out I was pregnant with twins again — but I never thought for one second they would turn out the same as last time.

After the babies were born they weren’t breathing properly, so they were taken to a special care unit.

It wasn’t until about five days after they were born that we saw them side by side for the first time.

And when they were together it was clear that one was darker than the other. It was unbelievable.”

The babies are now home and reported healthy. Link -Thanks, Sharyn Bramscher!

(image credit: Solent News & Photo Agency)