Strange, almost like phenotype is dependent on genotype?
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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You're telling me people whose genetics make them look similar have similar genetics???
Not proven until now.
These “duh” comments are always here in these situations.
We're just joking around here my friend :) of course it's important to confirm, still funny every time
I hope so, that’s good to hear. Some people seem so pissed off when making such comments about “useless” studies. 😔
People in text always sound more pissed off than they were. That mostly has to do with your expectations though ;)
You think this sounds angry???
Can you stop yelling?
sorry. I thought I was being friendly. Perhaps you'd prefer periods as my punctuation. I hope you're happy.
I too have autism.
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It seems this includes genes that don't play a direct role in the formation of facial features.
It is still interesting. I wonder if epigenetics plays a larger role, or if face look is tied to other random traits.
The article says epigenetics don't play much of a role in it, it's all genetics.
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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
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
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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.
I would say it's even smaller in number. Because some combinations would not work and might kill you.
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.
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...We all look like 98% similar.
they all look the same..
thinks some alien, prolly
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?
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Or maybe we're living in a simulation and whatever is generating it only has a finite number of characters. 😲
Bad news for people that look like famous serial killers.
So that's why I want to make people lamp shades so bad? /s
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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This kinda feels like a "duh." Or a "Well, makes sense"
Nice to see research shared like this, thanks. I've always been fascinated by facial similarities. The other thing I often look at, especially when pronounced, is the difference in the two hemispheres of the face.
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.
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How similar is DNA from convergent evolution animals?
well, at some point, everything is a crab.
so I would assume pretty similar.
great question though.
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.
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.
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