What are the criteria we use while choosing friends? Should friends be like us or, vice versa, complement us having the opposite qualities? The recent research has shed light on the nature of the choice of people’s friends.
The U.S. scientists have found out that we tend to choose our friends not only on the basis of common interests, but applying the genetic principle as well. An article in one of the issues of the popular scientific journal PLOS One is devoted to this question.
The experts have drawn such conclusions while studying the DNA of the people who call themselves friends. 5000 volunteers proved to have different variations of the same gene, and the same variations of the DNA sequence. As a rule, such coincidences are typical of relatives.
However, the authors of the study emphasize that this should be only a hypothesis, since they have studied a very small set of genes. Nevertheless, they claim that genetic similarity among friends is beneficial from the point of view of evolution: for example, members of the same circle of friends with similar genes are capable of resisting certain infections “hand in hand”, the journal PLOS One informs.
Source of the image: Photl.
