#157 - mutants!

today i watched a documentary about mutants. well, they didn't say "mutants," but they were people with genetically induced superhuman abilities. one guy seemingly had immunity to the cold (he could consciously increase his body temperature to the point where he could run barefoot in only shorts across like barren icy tundra), a lady was had synesthesia (where her senses of taste, sight, and hearing merged so she could taste like sourness in a 2nd minor, bitterness in a 2nd major, and creaminess in a 6th minor), an autistic man who could do tremendous calculations in his head (not just based on rote memorization), and a blind painter.

these are the coolest parts of science to me. geophysics, quantum physics, human anatomy, neuroscience and evolutionary genetics are entirely fascinating to me. i think i could be a complete science nerd if i had found these subjects earlier in my education (which is why i'm so drawn to the neurological aspects of speech pathology). i love documentaries on string/membrane theory, genetic coding, etc, and HD discovery channel and HD science channel have been obliging me greatly these past few months.

anyway, the show was called "the real superhumans and the quest for the future fantastic" and it was completely about mutants. they even used some comic book-like visual inserts to move the storyline (a la "kill bill," pretty cool). so these are the real life x-men, which was by the way, my favorite comic book, and really the only comic book that i really took to as a kid (repeat... as a KID). and i think the reason why i liked that series so much was because it was completely plausible. evolution continues one person at a time so of course eventually we'd get mutants, and then what do we do about them? all those storylines about mutant control government programs and mutant genome experiments are entirely likely. okay, maybe the "powers" wouldn't be as fantastical as in the comic books, but eventually some weird ones would pop up right? and what do we do with those people? and will we find those genes that have mutated and further be able to manipulate them?

but... here are my questions:

1. the cold guy - even if he is able to resist the pain of cold, how do his individual cells resist cellular damage caused by freezing? wouldn't the water in his cells freeze and rupture cellular structures? so if he is able to increase his body temperature to the point where the water in his cells do not freeze, then what's to say he can't raise his body temperature beyond normal 98 degrees? he also said that he started craving the cold, almost like an addiction, weird huh?

2. the lady with synesthesia - this is probably the most believable of the powers, because neuro-imaging showed extra activity in areas connecting the brain lobes responsible for sight/hearing/taste. they've already documented cases of right-hemisphere dominant brained people who can do some tremendous things (a lady who can sculpt 3-dimensional objects to perfection just by looking at a 2-dimensional picture of it).

3. the human calculator - this one was kinda cool because people have always heard about savants, but this guy (instead of using rote memory to solve complicated calculations) used reasoning and created his own algorithms to solve problems (like calculate 83 to the power of 1 thru 10 instantly in his head or determine during which years nov. 29th fell on a thursday from 1960-2030).

4. the blind painter - this guy was born without eyes (makes more sense now right) but paints pretty accurate pictures by feeling objects. this makes sense to me because if you're born without one sense, then obviously your brain is gonna use those "unused" cells to do something else right? except in this case, they did an fMRI on the guy while he was drawing and found that his visual cortex was lighting up like crazy! weird huh? gotta question what really goes on in each "cortex."

i also saw another program awhile ago about a blind boy who actually make clicking sounds with his tongue and used echolocation to be able to pretty accurately navigate in space. see what kinds of things the brain can do? there are mutants among us!!!