Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

i would go along with that :)

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

:rofl:

That would be a genetic mutation then wouldn't it? And as such, it can be inherited by his offspring.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

It depends in which cells and at what stage of development. If you hair cells mutate they have no way of telling your sperm to pass on the message.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

It's not likely that the kidney cells mutated during development in the womb for both brothers.
More likely that the genes that produce the "make a kidney" protein are doubled up.

Genes don't really work in the "this gene makes a liver" way.
Take eye colour, I have the genes which when read produce a chemical which my iris reacts to and turns blue, but the genes aren't "blue eyes" genes, they're "chemical that turns eyes blue" genes, and in iris, the "react to chemical that turns iris blue" genes are active.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Wich gives it about a 50% chance of it being inherrited by thier children (ish, I cant remember how you work it out, though I know the chances are increased considderably if both parents have the mutation)

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

That coming from an expert in the biology field.

I'm sorry, but until you prove that his offspring inherited that ability, it is a simple mutation which does not get passed along.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Perhaps you should have listened a bit more when your biology teacher was talking about evolution, even if you believe in creationism, you would have picked up the basics of genetics.

Mutations do get passed on to offspring.
The chance of it depends on whether the mutated genes are dominant or recessive, and if both parents have it.

Lets say you have two adults, both have a recessive gene for webbed hands.
Let N be the normal gene, W be the web gene.

Both parents are NW (normal dominant, web recesive)
Now the bloke will produce sperm with N or W genes, and the woman will produce ova with either N or W genes.
So the possible outcome is children with :

NN (perfectly normal, no chance of passing web hands on)
WW (totally webbed hands, can only pass the W gene on so has to be careful if reproducing with a WN or NW partner)
NW (normal but may have some web)
WN doesn't happen because W is a recessive gene

So they have 25% of kids with webed hands, 50% with normalish and carrying the W gene, and 25% with webbed hands

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

How do you account for his brother?

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Even if the mutation occurred at some point after the feotus started to develop, so the persons sex cells did not contain the mutation (highly unlikely as his brother has the same mutation), the mutation would still have occurred at the genetic level. Mutations are the result of genetic changes, so whichever way you look at it it's still genetics.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

the brothers are just brothers i think. as you have stated it is genetic, but i believe its inherited, because of they way it has happened, if they are NOT twins which i believe they arent.......

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Which makes you realise that they should never have got rid of the farthing. :)

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

how come these phenomenons never happen in uk?
only in 2nd and 3rd world countries.

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Because the majority of the world population lives in 2nd/3rd world countries?

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Has anyone seen this story elsewhere? I've not come across it in other news sites - it's making me sceptical on the validity. :scratch:

Re: 4 kidneys per brother
 

Thing is, if you start searching on news stories, you often find that exactly the same story is being repeated by different organisations, ie they're just cutting and pasting the information from the original source, so it may be unlikely that you can find a different version to corroborate it.