This Grandma has always felt that there something special about each person I call a friend. Something drew me to those who I hold dear as friends, a connection somehow, but I could not identify what it was. I did a previous post in which I assured young mothers that when they went back to work their babies would always know them as mommy no matter who cared for them while the mother worked – and that there were studies to prove this. It is attributed to a family smell, that family members can identify each other without realizing it because of a distinct family smell. Now researchers have expanded the study to friends.
Will Dunham reported in the Sun Sentinel, July 16, 2014 and at Reuters.
A study published on Monday found that people are apt to pick friends who are genetically similar to themselves – so much so that friends tend to be as alike at the genetic level as a person’s fourth cousin.
The findings were based on an examination of about 1.5 million markers of genetic variations in a group of nearly 2,000 people who had taken part in a long-running health study based in Massachusetts. The researchers compared people identified as friends to those who were not.
The study showed people were most similar to their friends in olfactory genes, which involve the sense of smell, and were least similar in relation to immune system genes.”Olfactory genes have a straightforward explanation: People who like the same smells tend to be drawn to similar environments, where they meet others with the same tendencies,” said one of the researchers, James Fowler, a professor of medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego.
The study, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows research released in May that found that people tended to choose spouses who have similar DNA.
Fowler said the new findings made it clear that people have more DNA in common with those who are selected as friends than with strangers in the same population. Fourth cousins are people who have great-great-great grandparents in common.
The article quoted a scientist as saying that “the mechanism used by people to choose friends with similar genetics remains a mystery.” This Grandma does not care. I know.
We can meet a large group of new people and there may be one or two that we want to know better. There is a connection made and we build on that connection to a relationship that works for each member. If that initial draw is because of the science of genetics, I am not surprised. Just thinking about the fact that my friends really are how I believe –the family I choose– brings a smile to the face of this Holocaust survivors’ child who has so little family who survived.
I just hope that I can keep myself from sniffing loudly at the next event I attend.
Joy,
Mema
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