First Week as a S-STEM Scholar, Human Chimeras

So this is my first week as a S-STEM Scholar and my first time doing a blog ever! I'm very excited to be a part of this STEM program and to be one of the scholars chosen this semester and I want to thank the STEM staff for choosing me. Well I don't have much to blog about this week but the internship interview I had on Monday with Josh and Matt. The interview was good and I hope I'm chosen to be an intern for the program. In the interview I was motivated to look into biological research and that's what I did. I found an interesting article about human chimeras. A chimera is a mythological term given to animals with other animals' parts like a lion with a snake for it's tail. Chimeras were only thought as these mythological creatures until recently as doctors are finding characteristics of chimeras in humans. This article states that there was a case of a mother that had recently given birth to a child but blood test showed that she was not the child's biological mother. She continued to take blood test but they soon found out that she was a fraternal twin and that the twin literally "absorbed into her" and the "combined tissue created a composite body". Another woman had the same problem when she needed a kidney from  her children but then found out they did not have her DNA. I found this article very interesting as I never imagined this ever happening and it's quite fascinating. There are links below to the the article.

http://io9.com/5911357/theres-a-good-chance-youre-a-human-chimera