If Superpowers Were Real, Which Would You Choose? - Joy lin

What if I could fly? What if I could live forever? What if I could be invisible? What if I could lift a tank? For ages, people have craved for answers to these questions, and what unbelievably gratifying way that we have used to express our fantasies is through the invention of superheroes and their superpowers. These days a summer doesn't go by without a comic book hero transforming into a giant to defend a girl next door or fly across a screen to protect the human race from unspeakable evil. While an audience's hearts pump with excitement, some people have found another path to make their dreams last beyond the movie-going experience -- through science! When the first comic book appeared in 1933, flying was a luxury. Nowadays, flying is the safest way to travel. The world's life expectancy has increased by 15 years since 1960 due to biology and chemistry advancements. There's been tremendous progress in stealth technology, trying to make real-life invisible cloaks. The fastest speed ever clocked by a human being on land is 760 miles per hour in a jet-propelled car. And athletes routinely dead-lift over 1,000 pounds in Strongman Competitions. We're practically breeding real life superheroes! From bicycles to jet packs, from looking up at the stars to entering outer space in the shuttle, our capacity to acquire knowledge and imagination to achieve impossible goals appears to be limitless. Exciting developments in the worlds of both humans and superheroes will always influence each other. For as you will see by clicking on any superpower presented in this series, the rules of superpowers and the laws of science don't always agree.