So many years thinking that DNA is the essence and in the end it turns out that it is overrated. This is what science says and it also applies to football.
DNA is an instruction manual. It is the one that says what can be done in a cell. But what does the work is proteins. And the one who says which proteins come into play and how they have to play is, not DNA, but RNA.
If you remember how it works, our genes are in our DNA. When a gene is activated, it produces RNA. And proteins are made from RNA. What determines whether a gene is activated or not, and therefore whether the RNA comes into action, is the environment.
Think of two twins with the same DNA. Depending on where they live, what they eat, who they interact with – in short, their environments – they can end up being very different. The DNA score is the same but the RNAs that direct the body’s great orchestra are not. And the musicians that act in every cell of the body – the proteins – don’t either.
Proof of the growing importance given to these conductors is that the last two Nobel Prizes in Medicine have been given to RNA research: RNA vaccines against Covid last year and microRNAs that make fine adjustments in the protein production this year. Biology is experiencing a golden age of RNA after realizing that DNA is not enough to understand what life is.
In football, the equivalent of proteins are obviously the players. And the equivalent of the ARNs, the coaches. Remember that RNAs act depending on the context. Depending, for example, on how others play. If they run 120 kilometers, we will run 126. And RNAs, in biology as in football, allow us to evolve faster than DNA. That is why – although not only that – they are so important.
#Nobel Prize for Hansi Flick
#DNA #overrated #Josep #Corbella
