Do you look like someone who is unrelated to you? This is the surprising reason why

Has a friend or loved one ever told you they had seen someone they would have sworn, was you? Well, research has shown that even though you may not be related to your doppelganger, the likely reason you both share such striking similarities is due to shared DNA.

Relatedly unrelated

Researchers from the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute in Barcelona studied 32 pairs of people who are not biologically related but look alike. Their findings point to an association between strong facial similarity with shared genetic variants, according to DailyMail.

The scientists found that the doppelgangers in their study not only had similar faces, height and weight, but also had similarities in some aspects of their behaviour. Manel Esteller is senior author of the research published in Cell Reports said:

For decades the existence of individuals who resemble each other without having any family ties has been described as a proven fact, but only in anecdotal terms and without any scientific justification.

She added that the widespread use of the internet and social networks for image-sharing has made it possible to identify and study such people.

Possible explanation

The 32 pairs of look-alike pairs were part of a photography project started by Canadian artist Francois Brunelle who has been taking pictures of doppelgangers since 1999.

The participants each completed a questionnaire about their lifestyle and body measurements. The data were then run through three different facial recognition programmes to determine how much each pair looked alike.

The results showed that 25 out of 32 couples were considered to be correlated by at least two programs while 16 demonstrated strong correlation in all three programs. Dr Esteller explained:

Our study provides a rare insight into human likeness by showing that people with extreme lookalike faces share common genotypes, whereas they are discordant at the epigenome and microbiome levels.

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