The 5 ways to make yourself superhuman

We’ve mastered the use of tools and learned to walk upright, but since then we humans haven’t done much to develop our physical side. We’ve not grown into a super-sized species, sprouted gills or even managed to run for the bus without being reduced to a red-faced, spluttering mess. An upgrade to our wheezing bodies is well overdue, and thanks to our true star attribute – brain power – that time is now.

Superhuman capabilities will be coming to a body near you soon, as Bionic technologies are tinkered with and perfected in labs ready to enhance our squidgy, organic selves. Don’t expect full humanoid assimilation just yet, but there are several exciting breakthroughs with the potential to transform our bodies as we know them today.

1. Superhuman strength

In the animal kingdom humans sit pretty low down the tree when it comes to strength. If our muscles matched our brain power, we’d be laughing at that unopened jar of mayonnaise; we all want super strength. Thankfully, through the wonder of technology, we won’t have to embarrass ourselves down the gym in order to get it.

There are people in the world today who are able to lift spine-crumbling objects just as easily as picking up a pencil. But they haven’t undergone some gamma-ray accident in order to achieve this feat – it’s down to an exoskeleton.

These are powered “frames” worn over the body that employ motors and servos to take the muscle work out of intensive tasks. Korean manufacturer Daewoo has developed an exoskeleton for shipbuilders that enables them to pick up 27kg pieces of metal without breaking a sweat. Still only in the prototype stage, its creators are working towards the suit being able to lift objects up to 100kg.

The military is a big adopter and developer of exoskeletons. It has demonstrated its ideas for future soldiers, and the latest designs look sleek, lightweight and impressively powerful. The Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) is being rolled out by United States Special Operations Command for its soldiers to carry packs, supplies and weaponry far heavier than ordinary bodies could handle. It’s being dubbed the “Iron Man” suit since its full enclosure offers bulletproof protection, enhanced hearing and 360-degree vision.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created a lightweight “wearable robot” to enhance the power of leg muscles and joints. The Warrior Web project comes straight from the science brains at Harvard University, and integrates motors and springs into soft leggings that augment the work performed by the legs. With it load-carrying becomes more bearable, and its hydraulic boost with every leg movement allows wearers to walk greater distances without fatigue.

Private company Ekso Bionics, which has been lending its expertise to the TALOS program, makes exoskeletons for civilians and has helped those with disabilities or paralysis to walk again. The battery-powered “body brace” drives the legs and bears the weight of the individual for rehabilitation, which in itself is pretty superhuman.  

2. Superhuman sight

Image by Chad Cooper

Our eyes are wonderful but they’re not without weakness. For starters they degenerate, and second we can’t really see very well in the dark, no matter how many carrots we’ve consumed over the years. However, ocular upgrades are one of the most exciting areas of Bionic advancements, with numerous labs, universities and private companies working on contact lenses that offer the wearer anything from telescopic vision to a built-in computer screen.  

Swiss researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have developed a thin lens that has the ability to zoom in and out at the slightest wink. Commissioned by DARPA to offer soldiers supervision, they also serve for sufferers of macular degeneration – a condition where, mainly as a result of old age, central vision is lost. Currently the lenses are capable of magnifying objects 2.8 times, but the technology is ever improving, so we could one day end up with the ability to zoom in on objects that are miles away.

Thanks to a breakthrough in graphene-based technology in contact lenses, which can detect the whole infrared light spectrum, night vision is looking to become a reality too. The discovery was made by scientists at the University of Michigan, who pioneered use of the nanomaterial. Graphene isn’t great at absorbing light, but scientists devised a way to detect light signals by using two layers of graphene with an insulating dielectric layer in between. When photons hit the top layer they work through the conducting dielectric, creating an electric charge to amplify the number of photons it captures. If it works, this technology means our vision would never again be hindered in the dark, with implications for soldiers, who could see enemies hidden in shadows or road users who would be able to spot dangers at night.

Less likely to be a featured superpower in the next Marvel movie, but important nonetheless, is a contact lens from Google X that can pre-warn diabetics of low glucose levels. The secretive lab unveiled the lens, which monitors glucose in the wearer’s tears and will set off a miniature, built-in LED light to warn if levels become dangerously low.

3. Superhuman health

Even with the strength of the Hulk, without good health we’d be as weak as Mr Bean. Advancements in medical technology have seen the rise of nanorobotics to help counteract and defeat disease in the body while also repairing any damaged tissue. With the ability to manipulate human cells at an atomic level, nanobots could be deployed to perform surgeries or sniff out infection – monitoring and keeping us in tip-top condition from the inside. Cancer is being targeted by nanobots; unlike chemotherapy, they can destroy cancerous cells without damaging the surrounding tissue.

DARPA is working on its In Vivo Nanoplatform (IVN), which is looking to use nanobots to heal wounded soldiers. In the long-term, this means nanorobotics may play a huge role in preventing our bodies decaying with age, making us immune to illness and extending life expectancy in the process. Sadly, nanobots aren’t available to buy over the counter in Boots just yet, but success in clinical trials provides hope that the tech will find itself into the mainstream soon.

4. Superhuman speed

Image by Charles Smith

The reason humans aren’t running around with Ostrich-like speed is because our leg muscles don’t produce enough explosive force. To do this we’d have to redesign our leg muscles – again, we look to the military with DARPA’s Warrior Web exoskeleton. This powered brace uses motors and springs that can provide additional force to leg extensions. The developers claim that it can provide enough of an enhancement for average joes to run a four-minute mile. The current record for a mile run is 3 minutes 43 seconds.

A more attainable method of super speed can be found by strapping on a pair of Bionic Boots. These aluminium and carbon-fibre leg attachments allow us flat-footed (plantigrade) humans to run in a digitigrade fashion (on their toes) as animals do. As well as lengthening stride, which increases speed, springs at the rear mimic kangaroo tendons to thrust the wearer forward. As each foot lands there’s a buildup of energy in the springs and is expelled as force. Their creator, Keahi Seymour, claims the boots can propel wearers to speeds of up to 25mph.

Remember that red-faced bus run? Think again.

Robert Freitas, a leading figure in the world of nanomedicine, has designed a nano-sized artificial red blood cell called a respirocyte that can store 256 times the amount of oxygen of a normal red blood cell. An injection of these would enable humans to run at full speed for 15 minutes or remain underwater for four hours on a single breath.

5. Superhuman intelligence

Brain-boosting implants and neural prosthetics might lead to computer-like learning, heightened memory and sharper senses.This sci-fi dream, however, has been held back by the sheer size of technology and type of materials scientists have to work with. New breakthroughs in the form of wonder material graphene mean implants can be as thin as atoms and, being pure carbon, are organic so won’t be rejected by the body.

At the moment, crude implants are being used to stimulate the brain to treat the effects of Parkinson’s disease. They’re also being used to counteract epilepsy and, to some extent, depression. The goal of graphene implants is being looked at by the military to pre-empt and treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The ability to even allow soldiers brain-to-brain communication is a potential possibility.

But for super-brain power, the University of Michigan has given forgetful folk and pub-quiz lovers a glimmer of hope with an implantable hard drive that could store reams of data. The concept takes the form of a “liquid computer” that uses a radical new way to store information using nano particles suspended in a solution. It’s claimed a teaspoon of these nanoparticles could store a terabyte of data.

While hopes of uploading a new language or mastering kung fu at the tap of a button is decades off, being able to unlock our brain power to telekinetically control simple actions is not.

If you want to feel like you’re using the force from Star Wars today, Neurosky – a company that specialises in making biosensors for the mind – has created a headset that can pick up brain signals and translate them into controlling apps, toys and devices. Although its uses are fairly trivial at the moment, future breakthroughs could see us using solely our minds to control, create, play and communicate on a Professor Xavier level.

And a bonus one… Superhuman invisibility

The power to disappear like Potter or the Predator is sitting in a lab being fine tuned by people in white coats. Invisibility technology using metamaterials, which work by bending light around the subject, have been a work-in-progress for many years.

Most recently, HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp showed off jaw-dropping imagery of its Quantum Stealth “blanket”, which managed to blend into surroundings. Its CEO, Guy Cramer, explains he cannot reveal how the technology works for security reasons, but it does so without LEDs, lights or cameras, and can’t be detected by infrared cameras or thermal imaging.

The race to invisibility sees the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany also competing with its invisibility cloak. The size of a shoebox it can hide keys, phones and other small objects using the principles of light-bending. A light-scattering coating is used to slow down the speed of surrounding light and then is sped up around the object, concealing it.

Although none of these fancy fabrics will be hitting stores anytime soon, the University of Rochester in New York has devised a method that anyone can use to cloak objects at home at a low cost. It involves using four lenses with different focal lengths to pass light around an object, with which they’ve had success turning a hand, face and ruler invisible. The smart chaps at the university have even supplied DIY equations on how you can achieve it. The technology, while relatively rudimentary, can be scaled up to hide larger objects – possibly even a whole person on the move if the lenses can be made mobile.