Technologies

Many parents wonder what their child will look like when he grows up. Now, with the help of a computer program, this question can be answered in less than a minute.

Researchers from University of Washington developed a program that automatically generates photographs of a child's face maturing throughout life.

The algorithm identifies correspondences between the average values ​​from each group and calculates changes in facial shape and appearance as people grow older.

These changes are then applied to a new photograph of the child to predict whether what he will look like as an adult, up to 80 years old.

Photo creation program

A photograph of a child processed using a program (left) in comparison with real photographs of the same child (right)

The researchers tested the effectiveness of their program on 82 people who were photographed over many years.

Random users, asked to identify the appropriate photo for each example, chose the photo generated by the program as often as the real photo.

The researchers say the results are so convincing that people can't tell which one is a real photo.

Such a program can be used to find grown up missing children. Usually, for these purposes, they resort to the services of artists who use photographs of the child and family members. But this is a long process and it is very difficult to obtain an accurate image of a child under 5 years of age.

Will her daughter get her father's rare hair? To get answers to these questions, you can go to the soothsayer Baba Inga or look closely at coffee grounds. However, instead of engaging in shamanism, it’s better to remember your school biology course.

While you were exchanging notes with best friend or counting crows while looking out the window, the teacher patiently explained to you and your classmates what happens when the female and male reproductive cells unite. In the process of merging, the light appears new life, which receives part of the paternal and maternal genes, which carry a huge amount of information: they are responsible for the appearance, health, and mental abilities of the unborn child. Despite the fact that the baby receives all the signs from his mother and father, he is born as a completely unique personality, whose exact portrait cannot be drawn by any scientist in the world: no one knows for sure exactly how the genes are intertwined in a bizarre way. However, there are a number of features that can be predicted with a certain degree of probability: for example, what the child’s eye color, hair shade, height, etc. will be.

Exact copy?

You've probably heard the popular belief more than once that girls are born like their dads, and boys, on the contrary, become copies of their mothers. This theory is only partly true: it is believed that the genes responsible for the shape of the face, the shape of the cheekbones and eyebrows, the smile, etc., mostly live on the X chromosome. At the same time, boys get it from their mother, and from their father they get the Y sex chromosome, which is quite poor external signs. Therefore, toddlers actually more often turn out to be “mama’s boys.” As for girls, they inherit two X chromosomes from both parents at the same time. So it’s impossible to say who the little princess will look like: she has an equal chance of getting both her mother’s and father’s faces.

Pansies

In moments of greatest tenderness, your husband enthusiastically whispers in your ear: “Our daughter will have your eyes as blue as the spring sky.” If at the same time your spouse has brown eyes, you will have to upset him: the likelihood of having a light-eyed baby is negligible. The fact is that genes can be recessive or dominant. In this case dark color irises are strong, and blue, like gray and green, is weak, which gives in under the powerful pressure of the first. Your chances of producing a blue-eyed girl are 25%, and a black-eyed beauty is 75%. But if your husband, like you, has a blue iris, you will never have a child with dark eyes. But two brown-eyed parents can expect a surprise: there is a 25% chance that the baby will surprise mom and dad with something unexpected blue eye.

Curly Sue

Light hair color, like Blue eyes, is considered a recessive trait. That is why some publications periodically publish articles on the topic that someday there will not be a single blonde left on planet Earth: they will be swallowed up by stronger brunettes. However, the World Health Organization never tires of refuting this dubious information: recessive genes do not disappear without a trace, but are passed on from generation to generation in order to someday appear again. However, this does not mean at all that your children will get your wheat hair color; it is quite possible that it will appear in your grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Here, as in the case of eyes: a pair of “blonde plus brunette” has only one chance in four of giving birth to Goldilocks. The same applies to saffron milk caps: chestnut curls, alas, are recessive. But if you are the happy owner of a lush, curly head of hair, with a high degree of probability you will get a baby whose head will be decorated with charming curls. Because curly hair is dominant, and straight hair is recessive.

Dimples and humps

On your first date with your husband, you were immediately smitten by his noble Roman profile - his hooked nose - and the sexy dimple on his chin. Keep in mind, your future son has every chance of becoming a sultry heartthrob: some scientists are confident that the genes responsible for these traits are dominant. Unfortunately, these same experts also consider protruding ears to be a very strong trait that is inherited. So, if someone in your family boasts funny ears, the child will receive them as a dowry.

Gulliver and Thumbelina

Some men are crazy about girls of model size with a height of at least 175 cm, others prefer miniature Thumbelina. Ladies, unfortunately, are more categorical: in modern society Tall macho men are valued (short Tom Cruise is an exception to the rule; after all, his too pretty face compensates for his short stature). Therefore, most likely, you dream of a giant son, before whose charms not a single beauty can resist. Alas, predicting the growth of a future baby is a very difficult task. After all, it is influenced not only by the parameters of the parents, but also by lifestyle, nutrition, and past illnesses. However, there is a huge chance that a tall mom and dad will have children to match them. However, parents with modest dimensions and the presence of tall grandparents can count on the fact that the child will outgrow them.

By the way, if you have free time and you are ready to do simple calculations, you can try to calculate the height of your future child using special formulas. A certain Czech researcher V. Karkus is confident that a girl’s height should be calculated according to the following scheme: multiply the father’s parameters by 0.923, add the mother’s height and divide by 2. For the boy’s dimensions, you will need a different formula: add up the heights of mom and dad, multiply by 1.08 , divide by 2. For example, if your partner is 185 cm and you are 170 cm, then, according to the Karkus formulas, your son will reach approximately 192 cm, and your daughter will be your height.

Mind for mind

You graduated from school with a gold medal, from college with honors, and your husband was saved from the army solely by his family’s personal acquaintance with the rector of the university. Fortunately, your children most likely will not follow the path of their slob father. According to recent studies, intellectual abilities are inherited to a greater extent from mom, rather than from dad. However, a brilliant man can also reward his offspring with a remarkable mind, but only if he gives birth to a girl and provides her with his X chromosome. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the game that the boy will receive.

Children to order

Who will be born to you, a boy or a girl, depends on which cell of the father's merged with the mother's to give rise to a new life. One half of the father's gametes contains the X chromosome, the other - the Y chromosome. The fusion of the first with the mother's egg leads to the birth of a little princess, the second - a tomboy. However, this information became known to people relatively recently. Our ancestors were sure that other factors influence the gender of the child.

China: head north. The ancient Chinese believed that in order for an heir to be born, a woman had to lay her head to the north while making love, and to conceive a girl, to the south. 


Germany: rain is for girls. German great-great-grandmothers were sure that if you make love during the rain, a girl will certainly be born, and dry weather contributes to the appearance of male representatives.

Greece: love in the heat. The ancient Greek philosopher and physician Empedocles believed that in hot weather there is a much greater chance of conceiving a male baby, and in the cold season, respectively, a female baby. 


Tibet: even-odd. In Tibet there was a belief: if parents dream of an heir, they must conceive him on an even day. Those who dream of a girl should postpone their lovemaking to an odd day.

People of the future

Ever since people discovered the science called “genetics,” they have been haunted by the thought of what a person of the future will look like. Researchers are divided into two camps: adherents of the first are sure that we will be reborn into gigantic beauties, representatives of the second are predicting an ugly future for us.

Dark handsome men. Medicine will become more and more improved, which means that human life expectancy will increase to 120 years. At the same time, there will be no early aging: and at 80 we will look forty. Compared to previous centuries, we have already grown significantly; this trend will continue, and the person of the future will eventually begin to look at the world from a two-meter height. Races will disappear: all earthlings will become dark-skinned and very beautiful. Facial features will be more symmetrical, bodies will be more athletic, eyes will be larger and clearer.

Three-fingered goblins. The habit of chewing increasingly lighter foods will make a person’s face childishly round, and his teeth – sparse and small. During the process of mutations (over several thousand years, people have already lost three-quarters of their sense of smell), our nose will fall off, leaving two small holes. To make it more convenient to press the keys, your fingers will become long and thin. Over time, there will be three of them on each hand. The need to accommodate a huge amount of information will cause the brain to grow to incredible sizes, causing a person's head to become large and round. Under the influence of environmental factors, height will decrease by almost half a meter, muscle mass will decrease, hair will disappear from our bodies, and the skin will become rough. The abundance of dirt and dust floating in the air will make a person’s eyes slanted and provide them with a protective dark film.

Stars about genes

Olga Budina:

– There are children who become copies of their parents. I can’t say the same about my son: he’s as different from me as two peas in a pod. However, one cannot help but notice some of my traits, which were repeated in Nahum with amazing accuracy.

Firstly, he has my facial expressions: he smiles, speaks, frowns, laughs absolutely like my mother. Secondly, my son is amazingly musical. Thirdly, at only five years old he is already a perfectionist and very ambitious.

Valeria:

– Everyone in my family is musicians. Grandparents, although they were not professional artists, played the piano. My children have inherited this trait: they have an inclination towards music, but I don’t see any desire for it in them. Although the eldest son studied piano and clarinet, the daughter plays the piano, the youngest went to music school at the age of four. The teachers called him gifted and said that he was “their” child and needed to be developed.

Even before the child is born, future parents love to dream, imagining what the long-awaited baby will be like. They imagine the main features of his character. They are discussing whether he will love exact sciences like dad or will grow up creative personality, how is your mom. While waiting for his birth, the family wonders who he will be like? What will the future child's appearance be like?

According to genetic scientists, the structure of a person’s face and appearance are determined by five genes. According to research, in the near future it will be possible to conduct a simple DNA test and find out quite accurately what the future child will look like.

The research was carried out by scientists from different countries, more than 10 thousand people took part in them. After comparing and analyzing the data obtained, scientists successfully identified DNA variants that take part in the formation of the face. Now the challenge for researchers is to figure out how these genes work. When this problem can be solved, it will be possible to draw up an approximate portrait of a person based on DNA.

Genetic traits

What hair color will your daughter have if her mom is blonde and her dad is brunette? Is it possible to have a baby with brown eyes with blue-eyed parents? Let's figure this out.

It is known that genes are dominant and recessive. In this case, the first genes block the effects of the second. This suggests that if the mother has a dominant trait (for example, she has dark hair) curly hair), then her gene will defeat the recessive gene of the red-haired dad. As a result, their child will have beautiful dark curls.

If mom and dad both have recessive traits (for example, one has blue eyes and the other has gray eyes), a fight will occur between their genes, and which one will win will become known only after the baby is born.

According to geneticists, a baby’s appearance is determined not by one, but by a whole group of genes. The outcome of their mixing cannot always be predicted. Therefore, the birth of a red-haired child in a family of dark-haired parents is not the fruit of adultery, but a genetic “smile” of nature. Just remember school biology lessons, where we were taught to calculate recessive and dominant genes:

Eye color

As you know, the blue-eyed gene is a weak recessive gene, and the brown-eyed gene is a strong dominant one. This means that it is likely that if one of the parents has blue eyes and the other has brown eyes, they will have a child with brown eyes.

However, not all so simple. The fact is that each of the parents has a pair of genes that carry certain characteristics. Therefore, parents with brown eyes may have a baby with blue eyes. This couple has a three out of four chance of giving birth to a brown-eyed baby and only one out of four chance of giving birth to a blue-eyed baby. But the birth of a brown-eyed baby from a blue-eyed mother and father is quite rare.

Dark hair is a dominant trait, while light hair is recessive. Therefore, if both parents have blond hair, their child will also be blond. If one of the parents has dark hair, and the other is light, the baby will be born dark-haired or fair-haired. He may also be born with blond hair, and by the age of 10-12 years the hair may darken.

But the growth of a child is more difficult to predict. The fact is that the environment in which the child lives plays a big role in this matter. Its growth is affected physical development, nutrition and past illnesses. But with a high degree of probability it can be said that a tall mother and father will also have a tall child. His height will be approximately between that of both parents.

However, short parents can also grow quite tall. tall child. This can happen if he grows in conditions favorable for this, namely, he moves actively, eats well and gets sick a little.

Characteristic signs

If, for example, a dad has a dimple on his chin, most likely the child will get it too. The shape and size of the ears also depends on this. If, for example, a mother’s ears are too big, her daughter or son will have the same ones. According to many experts, a large nose with a hump is a dominant feature. Therefore, it is likely that a child will have such a nose.

In general, some bright, prominent feature in the appearance of the parents usually carries a dominant sign, and this feature is most often passed on from generation to generation. At the same time, girls more often resemble their father or both parents, and boys more often resemble their mother.

This is due to the fact that girls receive one X chromosome from their mother and another X chromosome from their father. And boys acquire only one X chromosome from their mother. It is known that this chromosome contains a large number of genes responsible for appearance.

Genetics is a very interesting, complex, young science. It sometimes produces results that are not at all expected. Therefore, when imagining the appearance of your future baby, be sure to take into account the genetic characteristics of your ancestors. This will help you not to be surprised that in a family of dark-skinned, dark-haired parents a red-haired and light-skinned baby can be born.

Knowing your family tree and digging into the pedigrees of your ancestors, you will definitely find similar traits that your grandfather’s distant aunt or brother had. But the most important thing, no matter how the baby is born, regardless of the color of his hair, eyes, or the hump on his nose, just love him and raise him in joy and care, because he is your future. Be happy and healthy!

Some people just want to play virtual children with the stars. Many people in an interesting position begin to think about the appearance of their baby. When you spend so much time waiting, you want to finally see the face of your offspring and understand who he looks more like - mom or dad. You don’t have to wait until the baby is born, but use various services that compile photos of the mother and father and issue possible options appearance babies. Even those couples who are just planning to conceive can use these portals to see the likely image of the future child.

Let's take a step-by-step look at what needs to be done to avoid getting lost in the wilds of the World Wide Web.

First, you will need to stock up on photographs of the child’s mother and father: they should be digital, in excellent quality, clear and sharp. You can scan a regular photo, but it is important that the final photo is successful.

Next, you need to find a site where it is possible to combine two of your photos. Many portals have been created on English language, therefore, it would be nice to know at least the basics of “English”. If you don’t have such skills, just follow the tips below.

Find the “Start” or “Start” button to start building. After that, a window will pop up on the screen asking you to upload a photo. Click “Browse” or “Upload”, click on the pre-stored photos of the parents and go ahead: use “Ok” to confirm the operation.

Each site has its own standards for image sizes, so you will most likely have to edit the image so that only the face remains highlighted.

The last procedure is to click on the “Morph” button so that the system will take you to a page with the finished baby’s face.

There are sites where you can combine the faces of two celebrities to see how successful the result is, and then start taking your own photos. This applies, for example, to the English-language portal Morph Thing, which is simple and easy to work with.

But there are other sites! Their algorithms are similar: you select “Create a child,” upload photos of you and your partner and get the result. It is advisable to upload full-face photos showing only the face, this will make it easier for the program to combine images, and the result will be more accurate.

In fact, all sites differ only in the names of the buttons. Most often, each photo has its own loading panel: for example, in the BabyMaker 3000 program it is located under the inscription “Select a photo of dad.” Morph Thing and Make Me Babies are distinguished only by the inscriptions “Download” and “Review”, but this is even easier.

However, you should not trust the result too much and reproach your partner for the long nose or the strange shape of the eyes of the baby in the photo. Remember that this is only a computer program, which is a million times inferior to the miracles of natural selection. Such sites are created for the entertainment of future parents, in order to somehow brighten up their unbearable and very long wait. Therefore, do not forget to save the resulting photo masterpiece so that you can later compare it with your baby - you will have a lot of fun!