Monday, September 05, 2022

Doppelgängers (look alike humans) Similar in Looks and DNA

Amazing stuff! Fascinating! Where is my Doppelgänger? 😊

The massive proliferation and availability of facial photos on the web etc. has made it possible to identify unrelated human beings who are close human doubles in large numbers as far as the similarity of their faces is concerned.

I was not aware that the German word doppelgänger also has entered the English language until now.

“... To answer that question, [researchers] first needed to find doppelgängers. The team collaborated with Canadian photographer François Brunelle, who has been collecting and sharing portraits of look-alikes around the world since 1999 as a part of his “I’m not a look-alike” project. ...
The team found that people who look very similar are also very similar genetically, says Esteller. Comparing the 16 pairs of true look-alikes with 16 other pairs photographed by Brunelle that hadn’t been scored as look-alikes by all three algorithms, the researchers found that true look-alikes shared more genetic variants with each other than did the 16 less similar pairs. However, the true look-alike pairs differed when it came to patterns of gene expression and bacterial communities. ...
the team used “a very extensive questionnaire,” which revealed that physical features such as weight and height also tended to be similar in doppelgängers, as did lifestyle traits, such as smoking habits and educational attainment. ... "

From the abstract:
"The human face is one of the most visible features of our unique identity as individuals. Interestingly, monozygotic twins share almost identical facial traits and the same DNA sequence but could exhibit differences in other biometrical parameters. The expansion of the world wide web and the possibility to exchange pictures of humans across the planet has increased the number of people identified online as virtual twins or doubles that are not family related. Herein, we have characterized in detail a set of “look-alike” humans, defined by facial recognition algorithms, for their multiomics landscape. We report that these individuals share similar genotypes and differ in their DNA methylation and microbiome landscape. These results not only provide insights about the genetics that determine our face but also might have implications for the establishment of other human anthropometric properties and even personality characteristics."

Doppelgängers Similar in Looks and DNA: Study | The Scientist Magazine®




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