@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 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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 points 1 day ago

@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 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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 points 1 day ago

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.