Posted on 08/23/2022 12:02:46 PM PDT by Red Badger
Lookalike People In Experiment
Look-alikes in the study. (François Brunelle) It appears there's more to a doppelgänger than meets the eye.
DNA analyses of 16 look-alike couples have revealed some unrelated people with super similar faces also have similar heights, weights, habits, and behaviors.
Human resemblance, it would seem, is more than just skin deep.
In the study, 3 different facial recognition algorithms were tasked with scoring the likeness of 32 look-alikes pairs; half were classified as doppelgängers by all 3 algorithms. Researchers then conducted genetic analyses and found 9 pairs of "ultra" look-alikes.
Together, these super doppelgängers share 19,277 common genetic variations in 3,730 genes, many of which are to do with body and facial traits.
Their personal questionnaires suggest they share even more than that.
Some lifestyle features, like smoking habits, weight, and level of education, were also associated with many look-alike pairs.
Admittedly, the sample size is small, but the results, according to the authors, are "striking".
"These findings do not only provide clues about the genetic setting associated with our facial aspect, and probably other traits of our body and personality, but also highlight how much of what we are, and what defines us, is really inherited or instead is acquired during our lifetime," the authors write.
Examples of look-alikes
Look-alikes used in the current study. (François Brunelle)
The powers of nurture and nature are not easily teased apart, and while twin studies are a popular form of research in the field of genetics, doppelgängers are a bit of an untapped market.
Since 1999, Canadian artist François Brunelle has been using the far-reaching fingers of the internet to identify and keep track of look-alikes around the world.
Now, researchers are tapping into his catalog to better understand both what makes us human and what sets individuals apart.
The current study draws on 64 photographs of look-alikes recruited from francoisbrunelle.com, along with saliva DNA and lifestyle questionnaires for each participant.
According to genetic analyses, look-alikes were ultimately found to share similar genetic make-ups, even though pairs were not related.
Individual participants differed, however, in how their life impacted their genome.
Each person's microbiome, for instance, is heavily influenced by environmental factors like nutrition, exercise, and smoking.
This means the world of bacterial life in our guts differs quite a lot from individual to individual, even among those who have similar genetics.
The same goes for each look-alike's epigenome, which describes the chemical modifications made to coiled strands of DNA that can turn genes on or off. These differed even among ultra look-alikes in the current study.
This study builds on past research that suggests the structure of the human face, especially the nose, is sculpted by specific parts of DNA.
That doesn't mean look-alikes are long-lost twins or kindred spirits. None of the participants in the current study inherited their genes from the same recent ancestors.
Their genetic similarities represent a distinct subset of human resemblance that could one day be used to predict how an individual might grow and age.
"We provided a unique insight into the molecular characteristics that potentially influence the construction of the human face," says biomedical scientist Manel Esteller from the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain.
"We suggest that these same determinants correlate with both physical and behavioral attributes that constitute human beings."
The study was published in Cell Reports.
Lol, that’s funny.
I had something like that happen to me at church one time. The woman next to me looked just like my Grandma who had passed about 25 years before. At one point she looked right at me in my eyes, and I suddenly started to tear up. I had to go excuse myself to the restroom for probably a good five minutes to cry, then splash cool water on myself to regain my composure. It was hard! After the service, I explained to her what happened, and she gave me a quick little hug. I get how you felt.
I have done the same thinking I saw my mom. Sad when you realize it cannot be.
About 35 years ago my parents thought they saw me in a department store, the coat was even the same as mine. I was nowhere near.
It’s foolish to think that anyone specific DNA, like for blue eyes, serves only one function.
This is the danger of messing with DNA to address physical issues. We don’t know what else those genes control and what the outcome of changing them would be.
It gets weirder. It turns out that we were both at Da Nang AB at the same time when he was killed.
The memory of this lingered for a long time. I felt guilty giving her hope where there was none.
Some people simply look like a lot of other people. One of my sons had many doppelgangers. Once, in his teens, another teen snapped a photo of him and sent it to someone. Moments later, that someone sent back his own photo with a shocked expression on his face. They looked exactly alike. But, doppelgangers are not always fun. One of his doppelgangers was always in serious trouble. I constantly worried my son could be mistaken for that one.
When I was in 8th grade, I moved to a new state and didn’t know anyone. But oddly, as I walked down the halls minding my own business, I had kids waving to me and saying hello.
It was completely weird, and I just chalked it up to the people in this new state being so much more open and outgoing.
Then, after being there a week or so, I was walking down the hall, and I saw a guy walking towards me, and he...looked like me! And as we got closer, he was staring at me! We stared at each other as we passed without talking!
You know, throughout my life, I have rarely been able to look at someone else and say they looked like me, it is a weird thing. But this guy really did. I never talked to him in the two years I went there, but...it was a pretty big school.
I always wondered what that guy thought about it, but it was pretty clear in that one encounter that he felt the same looking at me!
Is there an untapped market for people wanting to meet their own doppelgänger? How weird would that be?
“None of the participants in the current study inherited their genes from the same recent ancestors.”
What about DISTANT ancestors?
How is it that the doppelgängers in the photos all have the same hairstyles? And they wore that hairstyle the day that their photo was taken?
What are the odds of that?
****Another guy rolls his car window down and starts talking to me like I was his good friend Jim****
Did he make you sing These Eyes Are Cryin’?
Superbad movie reference...
Yep, identical.
You HAVE to have seen this:
Interesting information. Too bad CARLY CASSELLA cannot write clearly. Research on twin studies is interesting and old news. Mysterious how external features overflow from internal, material, and genetic codes. Almost as if God the Father has a Hand presently influencing each mineral, plant, animal and person.
Oh dear.....my ‘twin’ was murdered.
I met one of my dopplegangers face to face once. Dude immediately realized he was looking at someone so similar in appearance to himself that he would not make eye contact during our whole transaction (i worked in a photo lab, he was getting vaction pics developed)
There was a guy a year or two ahead of me in high school that I thought looked a lot like me. I would have thought my dad might have been steppin’ out but I also look a lot like my mother.
That’s a great story!
Yes, that’s where I took my inspiration from. I think it’s hilarious!
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