The Sports Gene Chapters 3 and 4

Chapter 3 of The Sports Gene had me questioning just how much genetics play into the role of being a natural born athlete. We read about how MLB players have an average visual acuity that really helped them excel in their sport. Before reading this, I did not even know that vision could be better than 20/20, so reading that nearly every MLB player in the study cleared the 20/15 visual acuity test that Rosenbaum had been using for his research blew my mind, because before I was ignorant to the fact that perfect vision was not 20/20. It was then stated that one's visual acuity is predetermined by your genetics. While MLB hitters might not have any faster reaction time than the average Joe, they do have better visual acuity that can help them pick up the cues needed to hit the ball since their eyes can't even fully track the pitch of the baseball. Another study done on child tennis players to predict how they would be as adult players determined other parts of genetics that determines whether an athlete will be "good" or "bad". Scientists studied children 8-12 years old in their tennis-specific skills, and then their all around athleticism and found that tennis specific skills predicted only 60-70% of the variance in their adult tennis ranking, but the tests in general athleticism influenced which children would acquire the tennis-specific skills more quickly. The children that were better all around athletes were better at tennis. In other words that this book loves to point out "The genetic hardware was speeding the download of the tennis software." (45). 

Firstly for Chapter 4, the title has to be mentioned. "Why Men have Nipples." What an interesting title. Also, I feel terrible for Maria Martinez-Patino, finding out that you have the chromosomes of a man, while dealing with the loss of your brother, and being forced to quit her sport and stripped of all her titles that she worked so hard for is something really difficult to go through. However, she has the resilience of a woman because all the tests and everything that she went through and the crude headlines she had to suffer, she was ultimately decided a woman for competitive purposes. This chapter ultimately discusses the differences between male and female, and why they are separated in competition. Sexual differentiation essentially comes down to a gene on the Y chromosome, the SRY or the Sex Determining Region Y Gene, which calls for testis development. The small genetic difference in the SRY gene can create many biological differences that lead to differences in the fields of play as well – not just in physical traits, but even in trainability. The question of why women are even athletic at all is similar to the question of why men have nipples. The answer to the question and title of this chapter is because women have them. 

https://www.livescience.com/32467-why-do-men-have-nipples.html 

For further research on Men's nipples ^

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