6 PEOPLE WITH REAL LIFE SUPERPOWERS

We have often seen people line up for cinema tickets for those superhero movies. Do you know why? Most of us humans secretly desire to have some superpower that makes us extraordinary, and these movies help us to escape reality for a couple of hours and imagine how it would be to have superpowers. Yet there are a few gifted people in this world who don't have to fantasize about superpowers because they have been indeed blessed with some extraordinary ability that are beyond reach for ordinary humans. Let us look at some of these people that have remarkable powers that surpass ordinary mortals. Liam Hoekstra Liam Hoekstra is a kid who had been displaying amazing physical prowess soon after his birth. He was able to stand with assistance at just 2 days old, and by 8 months he was doing pull-ups. By 3 years, Liam was lifting a piece of furniture around the house that even adults would find difficult. Liam also has stunning speed and agility. He had more muscle than even active adults. The cause of Liam's super strength was a rare disorder known as myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy. Luckily for Liam, there are no negative effects because of this condition, although he has to eat prodigious amounts of food and protein for his body's enhanced metabolism. Ben Underwood Due to retinal cancer, Ben Underwood had both his eyes surgically removed at the age of 2. However, he developed a rather unique ability at the age of 5. By clicking his tongue, Ben would know about the objects in his surroundings by the echo he heard. This is called echolocation which is used by dolphins. Ben would thus gather a rough picture of the location of walls or other objects and be able to walk around like a normal person. He later developed this skill to superhuman levels. By the time Ben was a teenager, he was able to do just about anything that a normal person with sight can do. He could even identify the shape of objects without touching them. Ben was also able to climb trees, ride bikes, go skating, and even do martial arts. Sadly, Ben died in 2009 at the age of 16. He remains the only known person to have used echolocation to see. Wim Hof Wim Hof raised the eyebrows of many scientists after he was able to use meditation to stay submerged in ice for almost two hours without his core body temperature changing one bit. This is remarkable and adds to the growing body of evidence that points to the important role consciousness plays in our body's reaction to certain situations. Wim has also gone on to climb Mount Everest in his shorts, resist altitude sickness, complete a marathon in the Namib Desert with no water, and proven under a laboratory setting that he's able to influence his autonomic nervous system and immune system at will. Almost everything this man has done was thought to be impossible by most. Stephen Wiltshire Stephen Wiltshire was mute when he was diagnosed with severe autism at the age of three. He began communicating through his drawings, and with the support of his special needs teachers, gradually learned to speak. It was during those school years that they discovered Stephen's special talent, when he drew the ornate Albert Hall following a class field trip without the aid of a photograph. Wiltshire has the uncanny ability to draw and paint detailed landscapes and cityscapes entirely from memory. Wiltshire can look at the subject of his drawing once and reproduce it accurately with photographic detail down to the exact number of columns or windows on a building. He memorizes their shapes, locations, and the architectural flourishes. He has accurately done the cityscapes of iconic cities of Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, London, and New York City after a brief helicopter ride. Michel Letourneau Michel Letourneau, better known as which appropriately translates to Mr. Eats All, has certainly lived up to his nickname. The Frenchman has eaten everything from bicycles to an entire Cessna 150 airplane. Between 1959 and 1997, he ate an estimated nine tons of metal. Letourneau suffered from pica, which is a medical condition that causes cravings to eat such things as dirt, glass, and apparently anything metal. Fortunately for him, he also had what doctors deemed a very thick lining in his stomach and intestines. This made it possible for sharp metal objects to pass through his system without doing any structural damage. Kim Peek Kim Peek, who lent inspiration to the fictional character Raymond Babbitt, played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man, was a remarkable savant. Kim Peek's special ability started early, around the age of a year and a half. He could read both pages of an open book at once, one page with one eye and the other with the other eye. He would retain 98% of the information he read. Since he spent most of his days in the library with his dad, he quickly made it through thousands of books, encyclopedias, and maps. He could read a thick book in an hour and remember just about anything in it. Because he could quickly absorb loads of information and recall it when necessary, his condition made him a living encyclopedia and a walking GPS. He could provide driving directions between almost any two cities in the world. His memory abilities were astounding. The main cause of his remarkable ability seems to have been the lack of connections between his brain's two hemispheres. It seems clear from these sorts of cases that truly unique superhumans walk among us. These remarkable individuals remind us of the mysteries of the human body and mind, giving us a peek at the potential that lies within our kind. The next time you watch a superhero movie or read a comic book, remember that in some cases what you are seeing is not always so removed from reality. Amazing, bizarre, and weird stuff from around the world.