Friends are the family we choose

Xinhua News Agency, Washington, July 14 There is a saying in the West that friends are our chosen family members. A new study in the United States proves the correctness of this sentence from a genetic point of view: Although there is no blood relationship between friends, http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7501.html "> They are genetically There is indeed a certain similarity.

The study was published on the 14th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. James Fowler, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, participating in the study, said: "Genome-wide analysis shows that on average we have a genetic similarity with our friends who often choose to be friends with strangers We have more similar DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). "

Fowler and Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale University, analyzed about 1.5 million genetic variation markers of nearly 2,000 people. They found that from a statistical point of view, there are about 1% of similar genes among friends, which is equivalent to the genetic similarity between people with common grandparents.

The researchers say 1% does not look like much, but genetically it is a "bigger number." "Many people do not even know the relatives who have common grandparents with them, but we will, to some extent, choose to be friends with people like this relative," said Christakis.

New research shows that the most similar genes among friends are the taste genes. The researchers say this may be because people with similar taste genes are easily attracted to similar environments. For example, people who love coffee aroma may often visit coffee shops, making it easy to become friends with like-minded people.

In contrast, the big difference between friends is the immune gene. One possible explanation is that this is good for human evolution, because when friends can resist different pathogens, they may reduce the possibility of spreading the disease among themselves.

What surprised most researchers was that the closest genes among friends seemed to have evolved faster than other genes. The researchers say this may help explain why humans accelerated evolution over the past 30,000 years, and also suggests that the social environment itself may be an evolutionary force.