Researchers are finding that more and more humans are chimeras, having absorbed the genetics of a “ghost twin” they never knew had existed with them in the womb. A number of unbelievable examples have popped up recently, specifically having to do with paternal and maternal testing. A woman in Boston, the first and most famous example of human chimerism, unwittingly discovered that she was not the biological mother of her children. After enduring numerous genetic tests, she discovered that her ovaries’ genetics were completely different from that of her thyroid gland. In a very early stage of development, the woman had absorbed her sister, who, not to be forgotten in the game of life, had in turn fused her ovaries with that of the woman’s. In a more recent case, a man discovered he was not the biological father of his child. The genetics of the cells inside his cheek were different from the cells producing his sperm, which were actually remnants belonging to a brother the man had absorbed in utero. Ironically, although the ghost twins in these examples never received the chance to experience living, they have indeed won the larger evolutionary battle: their offspring will live on.
Fantastical, wouldn’t you say? But completely true. Potentially, some of us have also absorbed a ghost twin, but we may never know because the chimerism in us could inhabit places other than our reproductive organs. I like to imagine that people’s chimerism, really, is at the very heart of our multifaceted personalities. The girly girl that loves dinosaurs and running (me!), the rambunctious five-year-old boy who can never satiate his love for the playground but insists on an hour of reading everyday… chimeras surround us. Wildly fanciful, imaginary, unreal, but truly existing on earth.
Similar to the idea of chimeras, where a living being differs from what he/she initially seems, a prism, a transparent object used to refract or disperse light, transforms one reality into another. Fused together, the chimerical prism allows us to thrive as a whole, enabling us to produce innovative, spectacular, and useful gifts to enlighten humanity. Go out, it urges, embrace everything you love and become the Renaissance men and women you were always meant to be.
chimericalprism.com 