Categories
Oddities Science Fiction and Fantasy

Mama Chimera

ABC News: She’s Her Own Twin describes the medical mystery of two women who don’t match their kids’ DNA:

Lydia Fairchild was a proud mother who faced the most unusual of challenges. She had to fight in court to prove the children born from her body were her own. “I knew that I carried them, and I knew that I delivered them. There was no doubt in my mind,” Fairchild said.

The solution to this – the women are chimeras, mixing cells from two gentically distinct embryos – is something so damn cool it just begs for someone to incorportate it into a science fiction story, technothriller or mystery. Except it’s so damn outlandish, I expect serious problems with suspension of disbelief if you try and work it into a realistic scenario; better to go for sense of wonder.