Monday, May 24, 2010

Superpowers… in the Real World


What's up? So… another Monday, is alright, we've discussed it before and now we gotta start our week. All I gotta say regarding last week is… what's going on with the weather? I know you know what I'm talking about, these heat waves are growing bigger, let's hope nature isn't trying to make up for the cold winter we just had.

Now… topic of the day: Superpowers. What's up with those? Well, I don't need to throw at you the whole 4-1-1 of them since you pretty much have the knowledge… flying, x-ray vision, super strength, you know them all, of course, in the science fiction. Maybe you've picked up a comic book or watched a cool movie and you wondered at least once what would be like to have one of these superpowers, but what if I told you that some of these abilities are being performed by real people in the real world? And I'm not talking about using special lenses, an airplane or a suit, I'm talking no devices here.

It turns out science has made possible some dudes and gals to have certain abilities we consider -for the lack of a better word- amazing! Not sure exactly how we can explain some of this, but it's real and they live among us. The first example I can think of is this german baby I heard some time ago with a strength beyond ordinary, he was born in 99 and his nickname is 'Das Uberboy', and what scientists say is that there's a real genetic mutation (sort of X-Men) and his muscles are all ripped.


There are less 'obscure' cases (since that german kid has never been seen), such as Ben Underwood, his superpower is called 'echolocation' (for me the best new name for a superpower). It turns out he can't see, but it looks like we could, since we plays ball, skates, writes and all using and incredible techniques involving the echoes on things bouncing back at him, pretty much as a bat… that's a superpower Batman would be dying to have! An incredible note, Ben also can play videogames… but how? Don't ask.

As a final example are some Buddhist monks, who apparently are some sort of Pyro from the X-Men (second time I quote the comic), since the generate heat energy from their bodies to the point when they can put on fire certain objects. They do so with a meditation technique called Tum-mo, that way they lower their metabolism and control their body temperatures. Researchers still can't say how this works, but it's known the practical implications and even astronauts can benefit from all this.

What do you think? Sure there are many more examples, but how do these occur? Is not like science cannot explain it, more like scientists can't, because all has an explanation. Do you know anyone with any cool abilities? Any sort of explanation you may have about any superpower? If you could have one of them… which one would you like? (Please don't say something like: the superpower to have all superpowers) So many questions! Leave all your comments downtown and if you want to know more about it check out the vid! See you next Thursday!

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