Compared to most other animals, the average human seems fairly weak. We live in climate-controlled bubbles and eat food that we purchase in stores. Most of us would have a hard time surviving in the wild for even a week.
And yet, Homo sapiens were able to conquer the globe, spreading to the far corners of the planet before the existence of modern technology. Our ancestors traveled the world, traversing deserts like the Sahara and freezing regions like Siberia, scaling mountain ranges like the Alps and Himalayas, and even crossing segments of the ocean to populate new lands.
But the ability to accomplish all that wasn't due to superpowers that were genetically lost, as Scott Carney, the author of "What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength," recently explained in a TEDx Talk at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Inside all of us, we have remarkable abilities to resist extreme weather and to endure extreme physical stress. These superpowers are really what Carney calls "human powers," and they can be developed and learned.
Here are seven of the "superpowers" that can be found in individuals or that can be developed.
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Controlling the unconscious: people use breathing and cold exposure to learn to control body temperature and the immune system.
Carney began his investigation into the power of the human body to resist extreme conditions by studying with Dutch fitness guru Wim Hof. Hof claims that training his body through a combination of breathing exercises and exposure to cold temperatures has given him the ability to naturally warm himself, adapt more quickly to altitude, and either activate or suppress his immune system.
While Carney started out skeptical, he was soon convinced. The Hof method had a powerful effect on his physical fitness and he was able to climb icy Mount Kilimanjaro in just over 28 hours, shirtless for much of the way (most climbs take about a week in full weather gear).
Researchers have found that people who learn the Hof method do gain a limited amount of control over their immune system, something previously thought impossible.
We can adapt to survive at the top of the world.
If you've ever caught a flight to a high altitude location like Mexico City or Cuzco, Peru, and then tried to go for a job or even just walked up a hill, you know that altitude can be brutal.
And yet after a few days, things become easier. Your body adapts and red blood cells start to change how they react and hold onto oxygen overnight. This causes changes that last for months, making you able to live at the top of the world.
Indigenous people who have lived in these regions for thousands of years have developed even more adaptations that make it possible to thrive with drastically reduced levels of oxygen in the air.
We're still learning just how deep humans can dive and how long they can hold their breath.
There have always been people who dove deep into the sea. Ancient Greeks dove to wage war and to collect sea sponges, Japanese and Korean women dove to collect shellfish and pearls. But we've often thought of the ocean as a hostile place. When Raimondo Bucher set out to dive 30 meters in 1949, scientists thought the pressure would kill him — yet he emerged from the sea alive and began the tradition of modern freediving, which we're still finding the limits of.
Researchers have found that something about submerging ourselves in water causes heart rate to drop and oxygen consumption to slow. In recent years, divers have continued to push human limits, going down to 700 feet and at least one holding his breath for more than 22 minutes underwater. We don't know what the limits are, but testing them is dangerous.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider