From X-Men to Real Men: The Science Behind Superhuman Traits

Join us for this tiny expedition into the world of pop culture superpowers. In this episode, we delve into the realm of superhero abilities, discussing their potential scientific basis and plausibility. 

To go behind the scenes and learn more about this episode, visit “From X-Men to Real Men: The Science Behind Superhuman Traits.”

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Transcript

Chris Powell  00:05

Welcome to Tiny Expeditions. This is season five, episode three. This season, we are getting pop cultured! We've been talking about mutants and we've been talking about superpowers and having a great time doing that. My name is Chris, and I'm going to be your story guide yet again today.

Sarah Sharman  00:22

And I'm Dr. Sarah Sharman here to help you understand the science.

Chris Powell  00:26

And we have a very special guest with us in our studio today. Lindsey is joining us. Lindsey is our summer intern here at the Institute. Lindsey, do you want to say hi?

Lindsey Smith  00:35

Hi, everyone.

Chris Powell  00:37

Excellent. Sarah, we've had some time to talk about our favorite superheroes, favorite mutants. Lindsey, do you have any superheroes or mutants that you know that you really gravitate towards?

Lindsey Smith  00:50

Yes, my favorite superhero would have to be Vision from the Marvel Comics universe. I just really love Vision. He is such a great character. But also, Iron Man. Long live Iron Man.

Chris Powell  01:04

So, just to help us out, Vision, the superpower involved here is what?

Lindsey Smith  01:12

I think he does like a plethora of things. I'm not really sure what stone he came from, but he is part of one of the infinity stones that they are just trying to capture.

Chris Powell  01:23

How long have you spent thinking about the plausibility of these powers existing in the real world?

Lindsey Smith  01:29

Truthfully, maybe like five minutes because I don't really think they would ever happen.

Chris Powell  01:37

That's why you are here on this episode. That's what we're talking about. I got to kind of have fun last episode, because we talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who are, I guess I could say my favorite superheroes or favorite mutants.

Sarah Sharman  01:52

Actually, Chris, if the turtles were in the Marvel Universe, they wouldn't technically be considered mutants.

Chris Powell  01:58

Okay, so you're gonna need to explain this a little bit more.

Sarah Sharman  02:01

So, in the X-Men storyline at least, there are two groups of people who have powers. One group of them is called mutants, and they are born with an activated X gene. The other ones are called mutates, and they gain their ability through environmental exposures, kind of like how the turtles were exposed to the glowing news.

Chris Powell  02:26

So, you're telling me there's a difference between a mutant and a mutate?

Sarah Sharman  02:30

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Powell  02:31

Okay. No matter how you define it, can we at least still acknowledge that the turtles are pretty stinking cool because they love pizza and are ninjas and they fight bad guys?

Sarah Sharman  02:42

Yeah, I mean, we're not arguing they're not cool. But I think we played that out in the last episode. So, maybe let's move along to some new superheroes.

Chris Powell  02:49

You're right. You're right. And so for this episode to help us move that along. We're going to talk to a faculty investigator here at the Institute.

Sarah Sharman  02:56

That's right. We sat down with Dr. Greg Cooper. He and his lab use genetic and genomic technologies to help diagnose children with rare neurodevelopmental disorders.

Chris Powell  03:11

We heard that you were a big sci fi fan. Is that correct?

Greg Cooper  03:13

Yes.

Chris Powell  03:14

I myself am, too. I don't think it's sci-fi, per se, but we talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Greg Cooper  03:19

Okay. Sure.

Chris Powell  03:20

That's my favorite. I don't think that's exactly down your alley. But what is down your alley? Do you have a favorite superhero or superhuman character that you connect with?

Greg Cooper  03:28

So, I tend to be more science fiction in the sense of the culture novels and three body problem, that sort of thing. But I also certainly enjoy comic book and superhero-style stories. I guess I like the stories that sort of give you a glimpse into more honest humanity in some sense. So, you know, one example I thought of was a character like Daredevil, which is really about turning a disadvantage or a weakness into a strength. To me, that's sort of a genuine human superpower, if you will, that sort of resilience, adaptability, and creativity to overcome a problem when you're faced with it and come out stronger for it. And so, you know, another example, Iron Man is always a fun story because that's fundamentally about there's no magic elixir or spider bite there that's really about somebody being put into a difficult circumstance and kind of inventing their way out of it using their, their creativity and, and drive to emerge better. So those are the kinds of stories I like.

Sarah Sharman  04:28

A lot of times in these movies, especially X-Men, there's allegedly the one X gene that these superheroes have, but then they all have a different range of power that comes from that one gene. Is it possible that a single mutation could cause this many different traits?

Greg Cooper  04:50

I think there are multiple layers to this question. The first is this notion of a gene versus a mutation or a variant, right? So, you might hear in the news about a story that says that they've discovered the gene for schizophrenia or diabetes or whatever. And that's really never the right way to think about that. It's not a gene for a thing. Everybody, each one of us, has tens of thousands of genes. And what makes us different is that we sometimes have variations in those genes. So, it's not that you have a gene, and I don't; it's that we have different flavors of that gene and so we’re different. Again, this is where the words mutation and variant (and allele would be a more scientific word for it), but variation of genes is different than the genes themselves. So, it's not generally correct to say this is the gene for whatever trait, right? And it's in part because there is this complicated mapping of traits to genes and genes to traits. So, one gene can affect many traits. So that certainly is true that a single gene can play a role in developing your skin and developing internal organs and developing muscles and all kinds of things. And it's also true that a single trait, like muscle mass or your skin, involves many, many genes, so there's just kind of many-to-many connections. And so anyway, I think it's important to talk about keeping that terminology sort of separate, right, the difference between a gene and a variant or a flavor of a gene.

Greg Cooper  06:23

And I guess getting back to the question of whether a single gene or a single variant can affect many different attributes. And the answer is absolutely. You know, a term for this would be pleiotropy is sort of this more scientific technical term that a single genetic variant gives rise to a whole range of different traits, phenotypes, or attributes. And so that is, generally speaking, it's pretty true. I will say one big difference between comic book movie reality and actual reality is that, for the most part, genetic variants, if they're going to do something that has a pleiotropic effect, it's often that it does multiple bad things, unfortunately. So when we think about conditions that, especially the kind of conditions that my lab studies about early onset, things that arise during early childhood, a child could have a problem with both seizures and muscle problems or growth problems. So, that's a case where a single variant actually affects multiple different organ systems, multiple different tissues, and different cell types. And that manifests in symptoms in various parts of your body. And it's not just one thing or feature that's affected.

Sarah Sharman  07:42

So, in the X-Men universe, I think there are also two flavors of these mutants. And we talked about this a little bit with Sara, but we wanted your take on it. Some of them get their mutation, or this X gene is activated, through environmental factors, but then others are just born with it, and it's already activated. I know that there's something like that in the real world that your lab studies. So, do you want to talk to us a little bit about environmental versus de novo mutation?

Greg Cooper  08:15

Again, as we talked about earlier, at the end of the day, every single one of us is a product of both nature and nurture, right? So, it's very much a combination effect. And now, there are certainly some features where your genetics are really powerful, and they're present from birth and dictate a lot about a particular health attribute. And then there are other conditions that are essentially fully environmental. So, whether you get infected with a virus, you have to be exposed to that virus. But then the truth is most things involve a spectrum of things that are fully genetic to things that are fully environmental, and most things are in between. And, in fact, arguably, everything is in between to some degree. For example, when you're exposed to a virus, whether you actually get sick with it depends on your immune system, depends on your age, depends on your health status, and all kinds of other things that aren't really a result of your DNA, per se. It's your background and your nutrition, and all kinds of different factors that play in, so our job as geneticists is to sort of tease out the genetic portion. Certainly there are lots of people that study environmental risk factors. So we know, for things like smoking and diet, we can trace a lot of different health attributes to those features. But arguably, environmental effects are in some, in many ways, a lot harder than genetic effects just because your environment is so variable, it's so dependent on things that haven't been measured. We're not tracking everything, although I guess with iPhones and Apple Watches, we're tracking lots of things more effectively than we ever were before. But for most of us, we don't have sort of second-by-second measurements of the air you're breathing or the calories you're taking in, or you know, those sorts of things. So it's much harder to tease out a lot of environmental effects whereas in genetics, we have a lot of tools at our disposal that that you don't have when you're trying to study environmental effects. But, again, it's safe to say that nearly everything is a function of both to some degree.

Chris Powell  10:35

If you have a mutation that allows you to fly, right? We understand that flight happens because of, you know, physics pressure differentials, but then you have Superman. And I'm not necessarily saying he is a mutant, right? It's a different category altogether. But there's something called the laws of physics that usually prevent somebody from flying without wings. Let's say someone has a mutation that gives them some sort of super ability. Is this something that the physical body would even be able to maintain and overcome the forces of physics and the laws of nature in order to, you know, see the benefit of it?

Greg Cooper  11:18

So, the short answer is, it depends, but no, right? So, think of something like Superman, for example. If you're flying faster than the speed of sound, you have friction on your skin, and it's gonna burn up. I'm not a physicist, but I don't think our bones, musculature, and skin structure are built for that, right? You can imagine the space shuttle. The design of a space shuttle to get up and out of Earth's gravity is, or you know, into space, and the physical constraints that are needed to pull it off are extraordinary. And our biology is just not equipped for that. So, for the most part, for a lot of those things are imagined. Superman has laser beam eyes, right? They would melt an eyeball; there's no way they could produce enough heat to do what his laser eyes do and not melt his eyes in his skull. Right? So no, I think the answer is that there are a lot of physiological constraints. Another example would be Aquaman; if you were to really swim down 1000 feet below sea level underwater, the pressure down there would be tremendous, right? And it's dark, you can't see anything. So, you just think about all these things that comic books and stories have the ability to just sort of glide over, but in reality, would certainly prevent any of that stuff from being real.

Sarah Sharman  12:32

The human body might not be able to sustain powers like flight or laser vision, but there may be some enhancements that can sustain. As we were researching this episode, it became apparent that some superhuman abilities in comics and movies might be rooted in a little bit of truth. Superspeed, like The Flash, super strength, like the Hulk, and unbreakable bones, like Wolverine could all be possible through genetic variants.

Greg Cooper  12:56

Certainly, there are specific variants that have been found, for example, with respect to musculature, that has been uncovered that people can develop an incredible degree of muscle tone and muscle strength. And that's related to variants in genes that control how your muscles grow and develop. But again, that's not something we've come across. And in general, those are pretty rare. As we talked about earlier, typically, when we think of genetics, it's often because you're sick with something, and we want to figure out the genetic cause of it. Generally speaking, when you do, I think the analogy here is that you know, human beings are, and life on Earth is generally complicated, right? If you think about a human body, trillions of cells, and you have your liver, your brain, your heart, your kidneys, and your skin, and they're all very, very different. And so it's very complicated. And mutations, basically, mutations happen for at least as, at first glance, they're basically random. So it's a little bit like saying, if I go into a car engine and I randomly pull a wire out, will the engine be better or worse? And the answer is, if it does have an effect, it is probably going to make the engine not work, right? If you just start randomly messing with things, pulling them out, putting extra parts in, etc., it's generally going to lead to the system not working quite right rather than the system working better. But it certainly is possible, and once in a while, you might have unplugged something that actually, Oh, now you're getting 50 miles to the gallon or something, right? Those are very rare compared to scenarios where, Oh, yeah, now the engine doesn't turn on. Or the scenario wherein what happens is that every single one of us is born with lots of mutations. We're talking about dozens or hundreds of changes in our DNA that we don't share with our mom or dad, which are brand new. And for the most part, they don't do anything at all. So, you know, that's very often the case that genetic variant has no effect or has an effect that's so small that we can't observe it or measure it. And so, unfortunately, what that means is that genetics is often associated with some sort of disease and worse outcomes rather than advantages. But once in a while, it certainly is true. And those stories are really fascinating.

Chris Powell  15:28

This is a fascinating conversation with Dr. Cooper because, to this point, we've talked about superpowers that are kind of larger-than-life fantastical powers that none of us could really ever hope to have, like flying. But he's saying that there are certain abilities, superpowers we can say, that someone could possess that allows us to do things that are different or to go places that other people can't go, just I guess you could say of the general population.

Sarah Sharman  15:57

There are indeed groups of people who have certain abilities that allow them to live in places most of us can't or do activities that a lot of us are not capable of. For example, Sherpa populations live well above sea level at really low oxygen and thrive up there, whereas most of us would have to come down with altitude sickness. There are also nomadic people that live in the oceans who can dive really, really deep and stay underwater for like 15 to 20 minutes. I know, I can't hold my breath for longer than like a minute. So that's extremely impressive.

Chris Powell  16:32

A minute just alone is impressive, actually. And I've seen these nomadic people that you're talking about. They kind of live on boats and basically hop from island to island. So that begs the question of the ability to hold your breath that long. Is that something that's just developed over the course of days and weeks of practice? Or is that like generations of adaptation? Or is that something on the genetic level? How and where does that actually start? Because, in the comic books, it's usually something that happens, you know, instantaneously. But I'm assuming that doesn't actually happen instantaneously.

Sarah Sharman  17:07

So, we're going to talk about this a little deeper with Dr. Cooper. But to set us up, there are different flavors of change. There's adaptation on an individual level, where you are adapting to your environment so that you can survive. Those are mostly physiological or even mental changes that happen so that you can thrive and survive in your environment. Then, as we've been talking about this episode, there are genetic variants that you're born with that your parents don't have that give you some type of advantage. Then, one step further, there are genetic changes that happen in an individual that gives them an adaptation that allows them to survive, then they pass that on to their offspring, who then survive and pass on the gene. And many, many generations later, you have a genetic change that has been introduced in a population.

Greg Cooper  17:56

Genetic change to the extent of making two groups of people or two species different from one another happens very slowly over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. So, if you're talking about something like, ‘oh, this group has been living in some area for the last 25 years,’ that's not going to be a genetic phenomenon. That is not nearly enough time for meaningful genetic changes to have occurred that separate those groups. Whereas if you go back to compare, say, humans and Neanderthals, yes, there is some genetic differences that almost surely matter to the appearance and the activity of humans versus Neanderthals. And certainly, if you go over the course of billions of years, you know, all life arose to this process of mutation and selection. And so this amazing diversity of life we see is this product. It just doesn't happen over the course of tens or hundreds or even thousands of years. It's much, much larger timeframes than that. Now, there are examples of genetic changes that appear to have arisen somewhat recently. And again, we would say recently, in the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years that change certain attributes, like your ability to digest lactose. That's one of the examples that people have pointed to. But there aren't a lot of those stories. And it's just because it's the kind of change that takes place very slowly over evolutionary time and not quickly.

Chris Powell  19:28

If you were to have one of these traits that would allow you to have a superpower that is not constrained by the laws of physics, what would that be?

Greg Cooper  19:37

You know, I guess I haven't thought about that too much. Flight is always one that would be pretty amazing. So, I guess the simple answer is being able to fly would be pretty remarkable. And also, I think you can minimize the downsides that one of you will face because another thing might be like Charles Xavier, right? You have the ability to see people's thoughts and hear people's thoughts, but I feel like that would have a dark side to it if you are constantly bombarded with other people's internal thoughts. Flight is probably the simplest. That one would be a lot of fun. And I don't know that there'd be a lot of downsides to that if you could control when and how you could fly. Plus, not waiting in traffic will be pretty great.

Chris Powell  20:21

I'm sorry to press you on this, but I feel like the people will need to know this. If you were right now able to go outside and fly, would you wear a parachute as a backup?

Greg Cooper  20:33

I guess I'd start small and figure out if I needed it right—float up three or four feet. So, we do some experiments to figure out what could be done safely. I don't know. That's a great question.

Chris Powell  20:42

I mean, if I don't fully understand the mechanics of how this works, I might still wear a parachute just in case because who knows if the power is going to be pulled at some point?

Greg Cooper  20:53

It's a great point. That's huge. If you have no idea what the mechanism is, it's absolutely a fair point. Yeah, you'd like to know a little bit about that. I've never thought about that. But that's a great point.

Chris Powell  21:03

Over the past two episodes, we have spent a lot of time talking about superpowers—what is possible and what's not. Sarah, it feels like we just need to take a little bit of time, stop this conversation, digest, and think about what we would actually want to have as our own superpower. But next episode, let's move on to something different, like where are we going for the next episode?

Sarah Sharman  21:24

For the next episode, we're going to dive into the world of genetic engineering in pop culture. 

Chris Powell  21:29

Genetic engineering. So are we talking about cloning, something like that?  

Sarah Sharman  21:33

Absolutely. Cloning but also gene editing and the use of CRISPR. 

Chris Powell  21:37

Excellent! New territory, I’m looking forward to that. 

Sarah Sharman  21:40

Tiny Expeditions is a podcast about genetics, DNA, and inheritance from the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. We're a nonprofit research institution in Huntsville, Alabama, with a unique mission.

Chris Powell  21:51

We bring together scientists and companies to develop and apply genomic advances to make a better world. That's everything from cancer research to agriculture for a changing climate.

Sarah Sharman  22:01

If you enjoyed this episode, swing by your favorite podcast app and hit that subscribe button. While you're there, consider leaving us a review. It really helps us spread the knowledge.

 Lindsey Smith  22:11

Thanks for joining!