> But the first layer is still DNA.
This would be one hypothesis. The article is about how the competing field of inquiry ("bioelectricity") has been mistakenly ignored for the past 60+ years.
What if the field is more important than the genes?
This would be one hypothesis. The article is about how the competing field of inquiry ("bioelectricity") has been mistakenly ignored for the past 60+ years.
What if the field is more important than the genes?
Meanwhile, in terms of the parent article, yes- it turns out that "bioelectricity" is an important part of the embryonic development. But this is not at all serving the same role as DNA; DNA stores durable information, whereas these fields are being used for, essentially, intercellular communication. I would think that the fact that the researchers successfully replace a frog's entire brain, for developmental purposes, with a simple tweak to an ion channel, pretty clearly demonstrates that the amount of vital information being carried this way is minimal.
It's been a while since I was in a devo lab, but I've watched a few presentations regarding wound healing and denervation such as seen in paraplegics with sacral ulcers. The hypothesis was that the nerves were gone and therefore NGF and other trophic factors were gone leading to impaired healing. I'm assuming healing and development are nearly synonymous in some tissues. Like you said, it's not the electrical signals that necessarily matter that much, it's the chemicals produced by the nerves.
The discussion of what layer we should concentrate our research on has been going on for a long time actually. I remember reading some passionate arguments a decade or so ago about how we should concentrate on cells as the basic unit of biology.