Transcript

MN90 Intro: Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds. You have to look. It's so uncanny. Two people who look exactly alike. Identical twins. Not only do they share the same eyes and nose but the same genetics. Which led a group of University of Minnesota researchers to ask a what if : What if twins were separated at any early age? Would they turn out to be more alike or different? Essentially, did nature or nurture play a bigger role in who they became? From 1979 to 1999, the Minnesota Twin Family Study looked at 137 pairs of twins—identical and fraternal. The landmark study would show just how profoundly we're tied to genetics. One set of twins, the Jim twins, were separated at 4 weeks and reunited at 39 years old. They shared the same taste in beer and cigarettes. They both liked woodworking, suffered from headaches, drove Chevys and bit their nails. Still, the Jims weren't carbon copies. What the Minnesota Twin Family Study revealed was that as powerful as nature is, you can't rule out nurture. MN90 Outro: MN90 is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at mn90.org.