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.
Some how I just know there is some one out there that is going to weave a blond joke into this post.
I’m 83 and my wife is 82. Between the two of us we will have over 30,000 DNA relatives in a few weeks.
There are a lot of our DNA cousins out there. My wife is basically German and English. She is tall, blonde and not slender nor fat. Her nieces look like her and have the family nose everyone jokes about. They basically have stayed in the same midwest state. One side of the family is basically tall and very athletic. The other side is from England, shorter and more power athletes.
When we got married, she had over 40 cousins built like her and 20 plus cousins of the heavier set English types. The taller/blonde cousins have a better survival rate. They all have the Roman nose, basic blonde hair, fair skin and taller
than the other tribe.
None of my cousins nor siblings look or act like me. In fact none of us really look like each other nor other family members.
We are getting a lot of family photos via the 1950 census, and one 1st unknown cousin, who is now dead might have been my doppelganger.
One of our sons resembles Brad Pitt enough that it has fooled some of Brad’s fellow actors and actresses. He doesn’t resemble his sibling in appearance. Their certain likes and dislikes are very common now. They both have that Roman nose from their mother’s DNA.
They remind me of one my maternal aunt’s off springs. She had 3 girls and one son, and none of them looked like each other nor the cousins, us. They had zero looks like each other nor act like them with the exception of our grandmother’s head on the girls. Our sons have very little in common with each other and their maternal cousins.
“This must be the town my pappy told me about.”
What about DISTANT ancestors?
Is there an untapped market for people wanting to meet their own doppelgänger? How weird would that be?
It may be easier than one might think.
I have done a LOT of genealogy research, with over 125,000 names in my database so far.
I have found I have little in common with most of my first through 4th cousins.
Looks, politics, jobs, way of thinking, very little.
However, 8th cousins I have met and know are often like twins in everything.
To a lesser degree, 7th and 9th.
Were you adopted at a very young age? Perhaps you were adopted but don't know about it.
Do an internet search for "Three Identical Strangers" for a story about triplets separated at birth and adopted by three different families. None of the triplets knew about the existence of the other two.
Perhaps your future holds surprises that you can't even imagine.
That’s really fascinating. I can’t believe you reached 125,000! Wow. I’ve got 1,835 and thought I was doing well.
That’s an interesting observation you made.
I’ve worried about that as well........................😉
Mine needs a remodel.......................😜
That sure would be a mind trip...:)
Funny. If I look at someone now, I cannot even imagine being able to make the connection “That person looks like me”, probably for the same reason that when I look in the mirror, it isn’t an old man looking back at me, but someone younger.
But I wonder if, as a 14 year old, there is something different about the wiring in your brain at that level, because it wasn’t just me staring at him, he was staring at me too!
To this day, I wonder if I had turned around to look back, if he would have been turning around to look as well after we passed!
Smiling does wonders. :)
While my mouth may be upturned, the rest of the face is falling down!.......................😜
As long as the mouth turns up you are good. :)
I’ll wind up looking like the Cheshire Cat.......................😁
Aside from Alice, he is the only one everyone remembers from the movie.
He doesn’t mind it, he’s pretty easy going. But he was a comedian. Making people laugh got him in lots of trouble in high school.
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