Twin Peaks

Examples of Twin Peaks in the following topics:

• Growing Global Inequality

  • To discuss this global inequality, sociologists may refer to the world's "twin peaks," or two groups of its richest and poorest countries.
  • The existence of these twin peaks demonstrates that there is a wide gap between the world's wealthiest and poorest nations.
  • Current research indicates, however, that global inequality peaked around 1970.

• Effects of Time Dilation: The Twin Paradox and the Decay of the Muon

  • The twin paradox is a thought experiment: one twin makes a journey into space and returns home to find that twin remained aged more.
  • The twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more.
  • Just before turnaround, the traveling twin calculates the age of the Earth-based twin by measuring the interval along the vertical axis from the origin to the upper blue line.
  • The traveling twin reckons that there has been a jump discontinuity in the age of the Earth-based twin.
  • Spacetime diagram of the twin paradox.

• Technological Advancement

  • The early 1950s was the peak period for tractor sales in the U.S. as the few remaining horses and mules were phased out.
  • The race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11.
  • On December 23, 1954, Joseph Murray performed the world's first successful renal transplant between the identical Herrick twins at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, an operation that lasted five and a half hours.
  • Murray transplanted a healthy kidney donated by Ronald Herrick into his twin brother Richard, who was dying of chronic nephritis.

• Genetics, the Brain, and Personality

  • A large part of the evidence collected linking genetics and the environment to personality comes from twin studies, which compare levels of similarity in personality between genetically identical twins.
  • In the field of behavioral genetics, the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart—a well-known study of the genetic basis for personality—conducted research with twins from 1979 to 1999.
  • In studying 350 pairs of twins, including pairs of identical and fraternal twins reared together and apart, researchers found that identical twins, whether raised together or apart, have very similar personalities (Bouchard, 1994; Bouchard, Lykken, McGue, Segal, & Tellegen, 1990; Segal, 2012).
  • Multiple twin studies have found that identical twins do have higher correlations in personality traits than fraternal twins.
  • One study measuring genetic influence on twins in five different countries found that correlations for traits between identical twins were 0.50 (i.e., they had 50% of traits in common), while for fraternal twins were about 0.20 (i.e., they had 20% of traits in common).

• Are We Prisoners of Socialization?

  • One way that researchers attempt to prove the impact of nature is by studying twins.
  • Some studies followed identical twins who were raised separately.
  • For example, in 1968, twin girls born to a mentally ill mother were put up for adoption.
  • The parents, and certainly the babies, did not realize they were one of five pairs of twins who were made subjects of a scientific study (Flam 2007).
  • What race were the twins?

• The Romans

  • Romulus killed his twin brother, Remus, in a fit of rage, and Aeneas slaughtered his rival Turnus in combat.
  • Its three peaks were united with the three peaks of the Esquiline, as well as villages on the Caelian Hill and Suburra.

• Expansion and Decline of the Kushan Empire

  • The Kushans reached their peak under Emperor Kanishka (127-151 CE), a Buddhist whose realm stretched from China to northern and eastern India and parts of Pakistan.
  • As they wrested territories from the Scythian tribes, the Kushans expanded south into the region traditionally known as Gandhara, establishing the twin capitals Kapisa and Pushklavati, near modern-day Kabul and Peshawar, respectively.

• Gene-Environment Correlations: Nature or Nurture?

  • Adoption and twin studies can help make sense of the influence of genes and the environment.
  • Studies of adult twins are used to investigate which traits are heritable.
  • Identical twins share the same genotype, meaning their genetic makeup is the same.
  • In adoption studies, identical twins raised by different families can give insight into the nature-versus-nurture debate.
  • Adoption studies make a strong case for the influence of environment, whereas twin studies make a strong case for genetic influence.

• Panic Disorder and Panic Attacks

  • A panic attack is defined as a period of extreme fear or discomfort that develops abruptly and reaches a peak within 10 minutes.
  • Children are at a higher risk of developing panic disorder if their parents have the disorder (Biederman et al., 2001), and family and twins studies indicate that the heritability of panic disorder is around 43% (Hettema, Neale, & Kendler, 2001).

• Architecture of the Holy Roman Empire

  • The empire's territory lay predominantly in Central Europe and at its peak included territories of the Kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, Italy, and Burgundy.
  • Because of its enormous twin spires, it also has the largest façade of any church in the world, and its choir boasts the largest height to width ratio of any Medieval church.