Doppelgängers Don't Just Look Alike—They Also Share DNA. New research finds genetic and lifestyle similarities between unrelated pairs of “virtual twins”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/doppelgangers-dont-just-look-alike-they-also-share-dna-180980635/

331 points · 68 comments · view on lemmy.world

68 Comments

luthis@lemmy.nz · 101 pts · 125d (22 replies)

Strange, almost like phenotype is dependent on genotype?

Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 81 pts · 125d (17 replies)

You're telling me people whose genetics make them look similar have similar genetics???

paraphrand@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 124d (8 replies)

Not proven until now.

These “duh” comments are always here in these situations.

Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 22 pts · 124d (7 replies)

We're just joking around here my friend :) of course it's important to confirm, still funny every time

paraphrand@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 124d (6 replies)

I hope so, that’s good to hear. Some people seem so pissed off when making such comments about “useless” studies. 😔

Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 124d (5 replies)

People in text always sound more pissed off than they were. That mostly has to do with your expectations though ;)

fartographer@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d (3 replies)

You think this sounds angry???

partofthevoice@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 124d

Can you stop yelling?

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 124d

The hell? I guess we gotta fight now?

ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 124d (4 replies)

Big, if true

billionsandbillions@piefed.social · 4 pts · 124d (3 replies)

Colossal, if legitimate

slampisko@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 124d (2 replies)

Gargantuan, if verifiable

TheUnicornOfPerfidy@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 124d (1 reply)

Humongous, if credible

Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 124d

Leviathianic, if decipherable

lazynooblet@lazysoci.al · 1 pts · 124d (2 replies)

Does that mean you could guess a person's personality from just their look?

hateisreality@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 124d (1 reply)

Well not their face, but definitely the shape of their skulls!

FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

Of course you'd say that. You have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter!

angrystego@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 124d

It seems this includes genes that don't play a direct role in the formation of facial features.

chuckleslord@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 124d

Yes, but it's not necessarily the only way that would work. So this is very neat!

LodeMike@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 124d (1 reply)

It is still interesting. I wonder if epigenetics plays a larger role, or if face look is tied to other random traits.

angrystego@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

The article says epigenetics don't play much of a role in it, it's all genetics.

ChillCapybara@discuss.tchncs.de · 34 pts · 124d (3 replies)

Researchers say the findings may also someday help police investigators conjure up the faces of suspects from their DNA samples. But that potential application wades into murky ethical territory

There it is

applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 124d (2 replies)

Yeah I'm sure it will never make a mistake or be relied upon as the gospel of jesus like you see with, oh idk every single piece of technology used by police provided it aligns with their existing bias at the moment

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 124d

Find a dozen people who look like suspect. Do DNA analysis on dozen "doppelgangers". Take DNA from "doppelganger" that is the closest match, present to court using "expert" witness.

SineSwiper@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 123d

PBS did a recent video on how DNA evidence is not nearly as infallible as copoganda make it out to be.

NullPointerException@lemmy.ca · 31 pts · 125d (6 replies)

DNA has a limited number of genes. Considering the enormous amount of functions they need to encode, the number of genes for each function becomes relatively small. 8 billion people and thousands of generations, we’re bound to have duplicates.

Brocon@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 125d

I would say it's even smaller in number. Because some combinations would not work and might kill you.

angrystego@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 124d

Yes, but the article says that certain combinations occur more often that if it was random. People with similar faces tend to have similar genes that are nor related to facial features.

frongt@lemmy.zip · -4 pts · 124d (3 replies)

That's not exactly true. A lot of DNA is redundant, and a lot of DNA is dead code that doesn't do anything.

Staff@piefed.world · 19 pts · 124d

Is it really dead code, or we haven't found out what it does?

jaycifer@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 124d

Since you’ve only been told that you’re wrong, and I was also under the impression that there was a lot of junk DNA in our genome, I did a little digging and found this article that explains the progression of our understanding pretty well: https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/human-dna-98-of-your-genetic-code-is-junk-or-is-it

The TLDR is that the original junk DNA hypothesis is based on the fact that only ~2% of DNA is actually used in mapping out protein-construction. That was generally supported by the science from the 70’s to the early 2000’s. What scientists have found in the decades since then is that a lot of what DNA does involves regulating activity in the cell and responding to changing circumstances.

porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 124d

That's a very outdated idea.

veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 125d (3 replies)

...We all look like 98% similar.

EntheoNaut@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 125d (2 replies)

they all look the same..

thinks some alien, prolly

Ageroth@reddthat.com · 5 pts · 124d (1 reply)
EntheoNaut@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 124d

I love this short story!

hypna@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 124d (1 reply)

If different people with similar visual characteristics have similar behavioral characteristics, doesn't that imply that perhaps we can judge a book by its cover?

Little8Lost@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 124d

Yes but how much?

kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 124d (1 reply)

Bad news for people that look like famous serial killers.

Tiral@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

So that's why I want to make people lamp shades so bad? /s

OldGrayDog@fedinsfw.app · 12 pts · 124d

Or maybe we're living in a simulation and whatever is generating it only has a finite number of characters. 😲

temporal_spider@masto.ai · 11 pts · 125d (4 replies)

@RegularJoe I'm curious about how this might work across ethnicities. I can't point to a photo, but several times, I've noticed people from other continents who could easily be someone I know here, except they're African, or Asian, when the person I know is white, just for example. Under the expected differences in hair, eyes, etc, the basic facial structure is the same. A DNA match seems less likely in these cases.

RegularJoe@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 124d (1 reply)

I don't have a great answer other than of the 32 studied, these were their stratification:

Related to population stratification, among the 16 look-alike pairs, 13 were of European ancestry, 1 Hispanic, 1 East Asian, and 1 Central-South Asian.

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)01075-0

But whether people who look close enough to perform as another, such as the "Chinese Obama" (Xiao Jiguo) I can't say.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/chinese-president-barack-obama-lookalike-xiao-jiguo-charges-1-500-n444251

Then there's Indonesia's former president, Joko Widodo:

https://nextshark.com/people-love-indonesias-president-looks-like-barack-obama

It would be interesting to get the researchers to analyze their DNA.

temporal_spider@masto.ai · 3 pts · 124d

@RegularJoe thank you! This is quite interesting. I'd forgotten about the celebrity look-alikes you mentioned. I'm not surprised the studies aren't there.

borth@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 125d (1 reply)

I don't think it's about a DNA match. Those people you mention could share more DNA than the rest of us, which could account for their similarities, but their DNA will never "match" anyone else's.

Smeagol666@crazypeople.online · 5 pts · 124d

All humans are within 23 degrees of being cousins. The thing that surprised me most is that sub Saharan Africans are the most diverse genetically speaking.

ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 124d (2 replies)

This kinda feels like a "duh." Or a "Well, makes sense"

dovahking@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 124d (1 reply)

Genetics, I can understand. But lifestyles? How?

masterofn001@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 123d

Certain genetic mutations or chains of DNA can produce traits or characteristics a person exhibits, and can be hereditary.

Like diabetes, addiction, the way you and your dad have the same humor, natural abilities or inclination towards a subject, food allergies,

These traits could dictate a lifestyle, somewhat loosely defined .

Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 124d (2 replies)

I've wondered this about people who act the same. They also tend to have some of the same facial expressions and mannerisms.

Maybe like our brains have certain tempaltes of personalities that we alter along the way. A starter personality of sorts.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 124d

I mean there's this town in rural [state my family had a farm in but now we don't hallelujah farm work is hard] that everyone looks like me because, well, go back far enough and all 500 of them and me are related. First time I went to the old farm it was frightening. Like walking into a clone factory.

Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 124d

There are only so many permutations of topological entanglement!

7 colors × 6 directions = 42 types of individual entanglement within the topological matrix we are not IN but rather ARE

StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 125d
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rainbowbunny@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 124d (2 replies)

How similar is DNA from convergent evolution animals?

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

well, at some point, everything is a crab.

so I would assume pretty similar.

great question though.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

I mean, my uncle (who spent very little time with his bio father) has all the same mannerisms as him. As do I and my mother and one of my brothers. Some of it is that we inherited similar skeletal structure so our posture is similar. Some of it, I dunno.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 4 pts · 124d

I always wondered about this in terms of I have known some types of folks that look similar and actually often have similar social traits and this includes me to.

Crozekiel@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 124d (1 reply)

Why didn't they give FB-007 shirts?

RegularJoe@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 124d

Any qualified 007 could report to Q for cutting edge clothing and gear?

Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 124d (4 replies)

So should you avoid having kids with someone you look similar too then? Like is it that the virtual twins have genetic similarities akin to 3rd cousins or siblings...

Impractical_Island@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 124d

This is why my sister and I always use protection.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 4 pts · 124d

Thats plain rediculous. How can I possibly find someone good enough looking then?

KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 124d (1 reply)

I mean, iirc there’s no genetic reason first cousins shouldn’t have kids, I doubt third cousins would be a problem.

vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 124d

First cousins not having kids is generally good since it prevents the founder effect from getting too bad or long term inbreeding like with Charles of Spain or really any European royal.

KulunkelBoom@lemmy.org · 1 pts · 124d

It is, after all, a smallish planet. Bound to be some duplication.

MolochHorridus@piefed.social · -7 pts · 125d

Pictured “doppelgängers” have very little common outside pose and hair/beard styles.

piskertariot@lemmy.world · -14 pts · 125d

Oh good, phrenology is back.