Unbelievable facts
Mutants with superpowers aren't just found in comics. Of course, we're not talking about fantastic talent as we've had the opportunity to see, say, the X-Men from Marvel Comics.
However, there are very real people who were born with unusual and extremely rare abilities. Their talents are so unusual that it is difficult to use any other definition than “superpower”.
The only difference between real people and fictional superheroes is that the former do not save the world by destroying nearby skyscrapers. They lead a very normal life. But this is only at first glance — common…
The superpower that many people dream of doesn't always make life an adventure. For many, superpower comes with absolutely terrible side effects that can turn the life of a “superman” into an absolute hell…
People with superpowers
A little girl who doesn't feel pain
Olivia Farnsworth never feels pain. The fact is that it was born with a rare pathology called chromosomal deletion (more precisely, a deletion of a section of the arm of chromosome 6).
We are talking about the loss of a section of the chromosome, which led to the fact that the girl does not feel pain. This means that she is almost unfamiliar with the feeling of danger, as she has not experienced the “punishment” of pain in her life for careless behavior.
In some cases, this ability has proved to be an invaluable gift. She helped her survive when the girl was hit by a car. The car literally ran over her chest, dragging the poor man a few meters until it stopped.
And while her family was in shock, Olivia got up, shook herself off, and waved to her mother as if nothing had happened. The only reason that allowed her to survive is that the girl was not stressed because she did not feel afraid.
Because Olivia does not feel pain, her emotions when the car hit were significantly different from those of any other person if she, like this girl, was on the verge of death.
However, in most cases, Olivia's condition brings a lot of terrible troubles and troubles not only to herself, but also to her entourage. The girl never feels tired or hungry, so her mother must always be alert.
She works hard to get her child to eat. To put her daughter to bed, Olivia's mother sometimes has to give her sleeping pills, as fatigue is extremely dangerous for the young body. Deadly.
And don't forget about other reasons when pain saves us: when we get burned or hurt. These warnings don't work with Olivia, so she needs an eye to eye.
The girl cannot get burned with boiling water, so she will continue to drink it, which can damage the larynx and esophagus. She might even bite off a piece of her lip, tongue, or cheek when she eats without noticing it. Maybe being able to feel pain isn't always a bad thing?
A woman with an impeccable memory
Jill Price never forgets a thing. She is ready to recall any event in her life without prior preparation; Jill is able to easily remember the date, time, and any other minute details of any event that happens to her ever happened.
Her brain is, if you like, just an endless memory resource, a kind of video recorder that can always be easily “rewound” to Jill Price's necessary moment in her life from her past.
This ability promises a huge number of advantages and, at first glance, has no so-called pitfalls that can spoil the thrill of the filigree ability to manipulate your own memory.
However, this only seems to be the case at first glance. Just imagine your feelings and emotions if you had such a superpower. Jill Price, for example, describes this talent as “endless, uncontrollable, and utterly exhausting.”
A woman's memory constantly gives rise to such vivid images that Jill has almost no way to fully focus on what is happening around her. She is constantly forced to be distracted by immersing herself in her past and memories.
Read also: 15 real people with phenomenal abilities
This feature almost nullifies Jill's ability to learn, as she can't concentrate on new things. It looks as if her memory was tied to specific objects, things and images.
Thus, Jill's memory, while perfect, is unable to work in the direction in which it matters most to her here and now. Despite the fact that Jill remembers every detail from her personal experience very well, it is more difficult for her than other people to remember, for example, some simple school facts, abstract things.
People with unbreakable bones
In 1994, a man who is only known to be John (probably a fictional name) was involved in a terrible car accident. By all the laws of physics and biology, John should not have survived.
However, a miracle happened, and the man received almost no injuries, aside from a few scratches. His spine did not have a single crack; every single bone in his body was also intact.
Experts drew attention to this case, given the degree of destruction of his car. To the doctors' surprise, not only John himself, but all members of his family have never experienced bone fractures or fractures in their lives.
Perhaps this story will seem like a fiction — it's too close to cinematic, as, say, in the movie “Invincible” with Bruce Willis in the lead role. However, we are talking about a real person, not an imaginary person.
John actually came into the world with bones that were denser than any average person — eight times denser, to be precise. And, accordingly, much more durable.
John has the same problem as Willis's character in the above film — he's too heavy to stay on the water, so it's quite difficult for him to swim. It is noteworthy that many of the people with the same pathology note that their life is far from sugar. Especially in adulthood.
Higher skeletal density is a real daily test of strength. But not bones, but the whole body, which wears out faster, since all other body tissues are always forced to experience additional stress due to denser bones.
So far, John doesn't have any particular complaints about his health. However, according to experts, the older John gets, the clearer he will realize that his inability to stay on the water normally is not the biggest inconvenience that causes heavy skeleton.
Human superpowers
A woman who can see a hundred million colors
Most people have three types of cones (sensitive retinal receptors) that allow them to distinguish between seven million colors. The other millions of colors in the universe are inaccessible to almost anyone — except animals and some women.
The phenomenon of tetrachromacy (the perception of four main types of color due to the presence of four types of cones), as well as the fact that this phenomenon may be accessible to some women, was not mentioned once.
However, in reality, only one woman has been identified, who can be called a “true tetrachromate”. She was given the name “CDA29 subject”. In this woman alone, four fully functional types of cones were found among humans.
This anomaly gives the CDa29 subject the ability to see a huge spectrum of one hundred million colors. It is able to see the full spectrum of a rainbow of colors, including millions of colors that remain inaccessible even to our imagination.
It's a real miracle if someone suddenly realizes that they can see these colors. Essentially, the CDa29 subject sees colors that she can't even describe to other people. But that's not all.
This woman, with all the complicated hues she sees, is pretty much having a hard time imagining the colors other people see. As a result, the CdA29 subject, before being recognized as a tetrachromate, was simply colorblind.
There is a theory that only one to three percent of all women on our planet can see the full spectrum of 100 million colors. However, they do not perceive this skill as a feature.
These women, like the CDa29 subject, were recorded as colorblind. And their male offspring too — but with good reason. Ironically, the gene that makes women see more colors makes their sons colorblind. At least a CDa29 subject would never pass this ability on to his sons.
A man with fantastically stretchy skin
Harry Turner is a kind of Mr. Fantastic from the famous Fantastic Four squad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, Harry's abilities aren't as limitless as his fantastic prototype.
Harry was born with a rare condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. This condition also has a number of other names, but the point is that it gives a person hyperelastic skin that can stretch like rubber.
But that's not all: a person with this pathology feels pain every moment of his life. Harry, from the moment he wakes up in the morning until he takes sleeping pills before going to bed, feels a constant burning pain under his skin.
This pain is so severe that Turner is forced to wear a morphine pain patch that allows him to literally worry day after day. His stretchy skin also led to Harry being diagnosed with hemophilia.
In other words, with such skin, it takes a very long time for blood to clot. So if Harry cuts himself, the cut could bleed for a very long time before the bleeding could be stopped.
A man is forced to take so much medication throughout his life that sometimes he literally falls into an unconscious state. It can last up to forty hours before Harry regains his senses.
Because of these fainting, Turner was unable to graduate from high school; and they had a profound effect on the rest of his life. The only way Harry can make a living is to work at the circus. He performs in a kind of freak show, although viewers have no idea how much pain his stunts are causing him.
A woman whose beauty is the result of a mutation
Almost everyone knows one of these women—we're talking about Elizabeth Taylor. Yes, Elizabeth is essentially a mutant — technically speaking. Her stunning blue-violet eyes, framed by double-thick eyelashes, are the result of a mutation in the FOXC2 gene.
This mutation, which can occur in some women, leads to more intense eyelash growth. At the same time, the iris acquires a specific amazing shade.
The benefits of such a mutation for women are quite obvious. In Elizabeth Taylor's case, these mutations helped her become a superstar. However, this mutation does not always appear exactly as it happened to Elizabeth. FOXC2 gene mutations can cause unwanted hair to grow in completely unexpected places.
Sometimes these super lashes start to make their way through women's eyelids, which can be painful, leading to constant tearing. And, if this condition is not consulted by doctors, it can lead to the destruction of the superficial cells of the eye membrane. Vision may deteriorate, even to the point of blindness.
Experts attribute the same mutation to certain problems that increase the risk of developing heart disease. According to statistics, women with a FOXC2 gene mutation have a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease.
In the end, this is what killed Elizabeth Taylor, even though she died at a very old age. The actress passed away from congestive heart failure at the age of 79. Who knows, maybe it was only her beautiful eyes and the love of her fans that allowed Elizabeth to live to old age.
Body superpowers
A man who was found to be immune to AIDS
American Steve Crohn was found to have a completely unexplained genetic mutation. For some unknown reason, the man's body has demonstrated immunity to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Steve's active life, who, by the way, was gay, came just at the time of the spread of the HIV epidemic. His sex life was rather indiscriminate, so many simply considered him lucky to have escaped the infection.
While sexually transmitted diseases were killing a lot of people around Steve, he himself remained in excellent health. It looked all the more unusual because the man, as noted by his entourage, was not very concerned about his safety.
And while many of his acquaintances were trying to avoid death, Steve wanted to live a full life. Cron himself has repeatedly made it clear that it is extremely difficult for him to live, as he constantly felt the burden of grief that he experienced when he lost loved ones and acquaintances.
Steve wrote about his feelings: “You keep losing people every year — six people, seven people… It's not easy when you lose friends and you're young. And this has been going on for such a long time.”
And as a result, Steve began to collaborate with medical professionals, allowing them to study themselves. The latter were simply surprised, because they could not understand how a person could be so lucky that he was still alive and well with such a lifestyle.
Read also: The incredible powers of humans derived from genetic mutations
As a result, doctors were able to find out that Crohn had a genetic resistance to AIDS — but they could not benefit from this feature. So they couldn't use Steve's gift to save other people's lives.
It all ended very badly, and Steve eventually passed away at the age of 66. However, he did not die from any disease. Cron simply could not survive the death of another of his friends, so he took a shock dose of medication, committing suicide.
A woman who has super hearing
Justin Mitchell turned 39 when she suddenly had superhuman hearing. A woman's condition is described by a rare syndrome that has a specific effect on the auditory canal.
The result of this effect is as follows: the volume of everything a person hears, his ear increases many times over. If you give an example for the same fans of superhumans from the Marvel Universe, Justin has become superman… Or a supergirl.
However, having the super ability to hear more than others also did not bring joy to its owner. According to Justin, this ability turned her life into a nightmare.
Mitchell's hearing was so good that she could hear her own eyeballs moving. Justine compared the sound in her head that her eyes move in her eye sockets to the sound that sandpaper makes when it rubs a wooden surface.
Believe me that if you can be annoyed by the sound of your own moving eyeballs, then all other sounds become just real torture. For Mitchell, her own heartbeat sounds as loud as a drum roll.
The sounds made, for example, by her home coffee machine are so deafening that a woman can hardly stand on her feet while maintaining an upright position. And she thinks her own voice is disgustingly loud.
However, we can talk about all of this in the past tense, as Mitchell eventually found a way to deal with her super hearing problem simply by getting rid of it. To do this, Justine underwent surgery, which she believes saved her life.
It was dangerous: doctors gave her a choice: trepanating her skull so she could perform surgery directly on her brain, or obstructing her ear canal, which could cause deafness. But Mitchell took the risk of living a normal life again, without a rumble in her ears and head.
Brain superpowers
A man with a superhuman mind
Daniel Tammet has an outstanding brain, which can be called the brain of a superhuman. He can recite Pi from memory up to 22514 places after the decimal point; he can learn new languages faster than some people learn greetings in foreign languages.
For example, Daniel only needed one week to learn the language when he could speak it almost flawlessly. But this is about the Irish language. And everything would be fine if our life consisted only of quoting Pi and other logical things.
Daniel Tammett's impeccably logical mind, who suffered from Asperger's syndrome, was simply completely unable to understand the things that were elementary for each of us that could be describe it as “illogical”.
Daniel himself has repeatedly stated that his brain constantly depends on exact concepts and real things. Most intangible things and concepts (quite simple and understandable for us) are difficult to understand.
In addition, simple actions such as inserting a DVD into a computer, calling a taxi, or solving a simple algebraic equation all present challenges for Tammet. It is also very easy to distract his attention, which prevents Daniel from driving.
Daniel's most difficult to understand are the actions of others that are not aimed at self-improvement, as well as actions that do not make scientific sense. For example, he is very confused about such simple manifestations of human nature as emotions.
Tammet once said that he used his powers in casinos, like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man. And he had to pretend to be feigned joy. Daniel didn't really feel that way. However, everyone looked at him, and he did so because he knew that was what was expected of him to react. Logic…
A man who is not afraid of anything at all
Jordi Sernick is not afraid of anything in the world. He doesn't even have that option — the fear option. The fact is that he went through two surgeries that he had to undergo due to Itsenko-Cushing syndrome.
The essence of this syndrome lies in the fact that the body is adversely affected by excessive amounts of hormones produced by the adrenal cortex. As a result, the glands responsible for the production of adrenaline were simply removed.
Jordi can't be physically afraid now. However, as in the previous ten cases, this “superpower” led to very pronounced side effects. For example, Sernik can parachute off an airplane without fear.
The only thing Jordi can feel is a little nervous. And he jumps a lot. He started using his power to perform tricks in the air. This allows a man to make money. And the purpose of this income is noble — the money goes to charity.
However, skydiving doesn't give Sernik the same emotional outburst that it usually evokes in the average person. Jordi also admits that when he rides on the coolest roller coaster rides, he feels about the same emotions as being at home at the dinner table.
In other words, he doesn't feel anything at all. However, Sernik certainly feels something: constant and endless pain. He is still suffering from the effects of Itsenko-Cushing's syndrome.
Because of this pathology, Jordi's bones are very fragile, as they are affected by arthritis. And since his body is now unable to produce adrenaline, he is not only unafraid. Now he doesn't have his most powerful natural pain reliever. Sernik feels any pain much more acutely than before.