Twin connections, the experiences of identical siblings may mean for all 

of us, that our destinies are sealed from the day we are born. For years, 

people have alleged connections between identical twins, particularly those 

seperated at birth, and many astounding stories have been told to back this

up.

Take the story of Jim Lewis and Jin Springer. They were seperated at birth.

and had lived completely seperate lives for over 39 years. Yet they shared

something. Apart from the name Jim, they both married women called Linda,

only to divorce them and marry women called Betty. Jim Lewis called his

first son James Alan, while Jim Springer called his first son James Allan.

Both had worked as a part time deputy sheriff, then a McDonalds resteraunt,

had worked at filling stations, chain-smoked the same brand of cigarette, 

drank the same beer, spent their holidays on Petersburg Beach, Florida, 

liked stock car racing and hated baseball, had owned a dog called Toy, had

had two heart attacks, suffered migraines as teenagers but stopped getting

them at the same time, and suffered from insomnia.

Work of Richard J Rose, Professor of Psychology and Medical Genetics at

Indiana University, has shown that the degree to which the twins are

identical is linked to how early the embryo splits in two. He found that

the earlier an embryo splits, the less alike in personality the twins will

tend to be in the future. This doesn't explain why seperated twins do things

the same.

Nita Hurst felt an agonising pain up her left leg and saw bruises spreading

up the left side of her body. She later learned that her twin sister had

been in a car crash at that time, over 650km away in California. Martha

Burke of California felt as if she had been "cut in two" and had a burning 

sensation tear across her chest and abdomen. She learned that her twin sister

had died in a plane crash.

Many people believe that your surroundings, people around you, affect how 

you grow up, but studies have shown that twins raised seperately are as

much alike as twins raised together, which seriously damages that claim.

Might there be a force that dictates everything from the people we will

marry to the moment we will die ? Could seemingly random choices such as the

name given to a pet be part of each persons blueprint for life ? For now,

twins remain an unsolvable conundrum that scientists will continue to

search for the answer.

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