Today, rabid fan boys and girls around the world will stand in line for hours to see X-Men: Days of Future Past. But if it's mutant super powers they wanted to see, there's no need to depend on some fictional, CGI-enhanced Hollywood make-em-ups. There are very real people with very real gene-based super abilities all around us!
First, let's start off with the fact that mutations do not mean retractable adamantium claws nor the ability to control the weather. In fact, these little genetic typos typically result in very minor changes, which (when they aren't deadly) are often not visible.
Mutations are the means by which new variants are added into the genetic pool. If these traits are advantageous (or at least benign), they are passed along through the generations until they become a normal part of a species' grander gene pool.
Without mutations, species could never gain new abilities or attributes. For example, in our species' recent past (around 12,000 years ago), a single human had a mutation which gave him the "superpower" to drink cow's milk and not get sick, which was then passed to half the world's population. Now we have cheeseburgers.
Scientists believe that every time the human genome duplicates itself there are around 100 new mutations. They're pretty common, and usually negligible. However, it would stand to reason that within the pantheon of human mutations, some would express themselves in the form of extraordinary superhuman abilities.
Check out below for nine examples of medically verified human abilities resulting from minute changes in genetic code. Or, to put it in a much more interesting way: Here are nine examples of real-life mutant super heroes!
1. Super Endurance!
Finnish Olympic skiing champion Eero Mantyranta may have been the first Finnish sportsman to test positive for hormone doping (which was totes kosher back in the 1960s), but he probably didn't need to since he had genetic super endurance powers!
Along with other members of his extended family, Mantyranta had a condition resulting from a mutation in the erythropoietin receptor gene, which resulted in the ability to carry 50 percent more oxygen in his bloodstream. A trait that is quite advantageous in endurance competition.
2. Super Strength!
When most people think of genetic disorders, they usually picture the ones that result in physical frailty. However, going by Shamalanian logic, there should also be genetic disorders from the other side of the bell curve that result in superhuman strength. And that seems to be the case with an eight-year old Michigan boy, Liam Hoekstra.
Liam has a rare genetic condition in which his body doesn't produce the protein myostatin, which inhibits muscle growth. Individuals or animals with this deficiency tend to have much larger muscles with little body fat; An inherent super strength!
While Liam doesn't appear to boast any fantastical car-tossing strength, he is naturally stronger than all his peers without doing any training. The only downside to his condition is that he must eat more than his peers in order to "keep up" with his body.
3. Eating That Which Should Not Be Eaten!
Michel Lotito was a French "entertainer" known as Monsieur Mangetout or "Mr. Eats All." Throughout his career, Michel consumed all manner of non-consumable objects made of glass, rubber, and metal (which he would often accompany by downing oil). One of his most impressive feats was consuming an entire Cessna 150 airplane, which he ate in small bits over the course of two years.
There was a couple of things going on here: First, Michel appeared suffer from a condition known as Pica, a disorder characterized by the appetite for non-consumable foods like dirt, rocks, and metals. But what makes Michel truly notable is the abnormally thick lining in his stomach and intestines that made it possible for him to eat sharp metal objects and consume toxic substances, which would have killed a lesser person.
4. Ability to Eat Many Hot Dogs!
Multiple hot dog-eating contest champion, Takeru Kobayashi attributes some of his unique "ability" to the fact that his stomach sits far lower than that of the average human, thus giving it more room to expand upwards.
When asked about his unnamed digestive "condition" during a 2012 AMA, Kobayashi said that "the stomach condition is true. I have been checked not on a serious level. I have had a camera put down in my stomach before. When they put it inside, just the camera touching the inside of my stomach stretched it and it surprised the doctors because of the elasticity."
5. Hyper Photographic Memory!
You may have difficulty remembering the exact details of the late-1970s TV sitcom Taxi, but actress Marilu Henner sure doesn't. And not just because it was her most notable role, but rather because she has a condition known as hyperthymesia, or the ability to recall every tiny, stupid detail from her life going back decades. Ev-er-y detail.
Marilu is only one of 25 confirmed cases of hyperthymesia, which allows her to pinpoint the smallest details of her life on nearly any given day. She told ABC that rifling through her memory is similar to viewing "little videos moving simultaneously… When somebody gives me a date or a year or something, I see all these little movie montages, basically on a time continuum, and I’m scrolling through them and flashing through them."
While some scientists theorize hyperthymesia is the result of an obsessive-compulsive need to constantly review (and therefore renew) one's memories, there is also a physiological link in which the temporal lobe and caudate nucleus of the brain are found to be enlarged in the afflicted.
6. Super Flexibility!
Even if you don't know the name Javier Botet, if you're a horror fan, the chances are you've seen his work. Javier was the emaciated creature at the end of the excellent Spanish horror film [REC] (better than its American remake Quarantine) and he was the titular character in the film Mama. As you see in the test footage above from Mama, while a lot can be done with makeup and CGI, it's no replacement for the spookiness that comes from someone with the ability to bend themselves in ungodly poses.
Botet suffers from a genetic condition known as Marfan syndrome, which affects connective tissue throughout the body. People with Marfan tend to be unusually tall, with long limbs and fingers, and have "abnormal flexibility."
Marfan is a spectrum disease, meaning that severe cases can lead to life-threatening defects in the heart and other organs. However, those with mild symptoms can live normal, full, healthy lives.
7. Party Hard and Face No Physical Consequences!
Why is Ozzy Osbourne still alive? And I ask this question as a fan of Oz. For someone who has, by his own admission, drank, smoked, popped, snorted, and injected copious amounts of substances over the years, why is Osbourne still around when so many similarly inclined musicians from the past are not?
The answer may be due to his mutant superpowers for partying! Really. Back in 2010, Ozzy had his genome sequenced and researches said they found several gene variants "never seen before." They are, perhaps unsurprisingly, found in regions of the genome associated with alcoholism and how the body absorbs methamphetamines and other recreational drugs.
8. Unbelievably Sexy Hollywood Eyelashes!
Elizabeth Taylor: Actress, Icon, Mutant. Taylor "suffered" from a rare condition known as distichia, in which the eyelashes arise from an abnormal spot on the eyelid. In Taylor's case, she actually boasted a double-set of eyelashes, which only helped draw attention to her famous "violet" eyes.
Distichia can cause medical issues in some people, by which the eye is being constantly brushed against the lashes. However, in Taylor's case, it only led to fame and fortune.
9. No Need For Sleep!
You've always heard that you need eight hours of sleep a night. And that's good advice - for most people.
After conducting genetic tests on sleep-test participants, University of California, San Francisco researchers were able to locate a mother and daughter who share an abnormal copy of a gene known as DEC2, which affects the circadian rhythm. The result is they are "short sleepers" who need far less sleep than the average person, a genetic disposition that may affect as much as 5 percent of the population.
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