Kaydon and Layton Wood are just five yet already they are local celebrities. In fact, the twins have been making headlines in regional newspapers since they were born – because one is white and the other black.

      Kaydon 和Layton Wood僅僅只有五歲，但是他們已經(jīng)是當(dāng)?shù)氐拿肆恕?shí)際上，這對(duì)雙胞胎一出生就出現(xiàn)在在地區(qū)新聞?lì)^條，因?yàn)樗麄兊囊粋€(gè)是白皮膚，一個(gè)卻是黑皮膚。

      Each year, 12,000 sets of twins are born in Britain. Of these, 385 of them are black or mixed race, but those like Kaydon and Layton are rare.

      英國(guó)每年有12000對(duì)雙胞胎出生，其中385對(duì)是黑色或混血種族。但是像Kaydon 和Layton Wood這樣的非常稀少.

      Dr Jim Wilson, a population geneticist at the University of Edinburgh, explains: “Since parents contribute 50 per cent of the genes each to an off­­­­spring, the first generation born to a mixed-race couple will definitely be midway in colour between the two. But second-generation children are different. If one of the offspring marries a white person, it is possible for them to have a white child. It is not certain actually. One child in ten is now mixed race, which potentially means black and white twins will become far more common. ”

      愛(ài)丁堡大學(xué)人口遺傳學(xué)家Jim Wilson博士解釋說(shuō)：“父母對(duì)后代各占50%的遺傳基因，第一代混血兒在膚色上肯定會(huì)中和父母雙方的膚色。但第二代混血兒就不同了。如果第一代混血兒和白種人結(jié)婚，他們就很可能會(huì)生一個(gè)白種孩子；當(dāng)然情況也未必一定。現(xiàn)在十分之一的孩子是混血人種，潛在的意思是一黑一白的雙胞胎將會(huì)變得更加常見(jiàn)。”

      Dr Wilson continues: “There are about 20 genes [from a total of about 20,000] known to control skin and eye colour. In each gene you have a light-skinned variant and a dark- skinned variant. If you have more of the dark-skinned variant in your DNA, you’ll inherit dark skin. If there’s more light-skin variant, you’ll inherit light skin. Also, you can have African hair and very white skin, which is very striking because it’s so rare, or you could have a dark-skinned baby with blond hair r. It is also possible to have dark people with blue eyes.”

      Wilson博士說(shuō)：“已知大約有20種基因（人體一共大概有20000基因）控制膚色和眼睛的顏色。每一種基因內(nèi)都有亮膚色變體和深膚色變體。如果DNA中含深膚色變體較多，你將遺傳到較深的膚色；反之亦然。同樣，你可能擁有非洲人的頭發(fā)但是皮膚很白，這是非常驚人的而且罕見(jiàn)的；或者你還可能有一個(gè)深膚色金發(fā)的寶寶；還可能是一個(gè)黑皮膚藍(lán)眼睛的寶寶。”

      The genetic reason for this phenomenon may be relatively easy to understand but the society's response to it can be far more complicated. The discrimination of the colour of skin still existed

      這一現(xiàn)象的遺傳原因或許相對(duì)容易理解，但是社會(huì)對(duì)此的反應(yīng)就復(fù)雜的多。對(duì)膚色的歧視仍然存在。

      In the longer term, the rise of a mixed-racial gene pool could have some remarkable effects on our nation's health. Some diseases prominent within the European population that could see numbers drop as mixed-race grow are cystic fibrosis, coeliac disease, muscular dystrophy and haemophilia.

      從長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)來(lái)看，這一混血基因庫(kù)的出現(xiàn)很可能對(duì)國(guó)民健康帶來(lái)非凡的影響。一些歐洲人種中顯著的疾病很可能因?yàn)榛煅朔N的增多而大大的減少，比如囊胞性纖維癥, 乳糜泄，肌肉萎縮癥還有血友病。

《大千世界:雙胞胎膚色竟一黑一白》永久閱讀地址: http://www.jiazhineng.cn/yingyu/3965/