St. Albert science fans can find out how they can wall-crawl like Spider-Man as part of an adults-only presentation at an Edmonton science centre Thursday.
About 600 people are expected to come out to the Telus World of Science Jan. 23 for Dark Matters: Superhuman – an adults-only evening of fun, drinks and science. Dark Matters is an ongoing series at the science centre that lets adults explore scientific topics over drinks.
This month’s event will be all about superhumans, a topic picked to coincide with the Marvel: Universe of Superheroes exhibit now at the science centre, said staff scientist Mirabelle Premont-Schwarz.
Guests will get to hear talks on the science of superpowers, eat liquid nitrogen ice cream fortified with vitamin-rich “super fruits” and play Memory using superhuman-sized tiles, Premont-Schwarz said. They can also check out high-tech robot limbs built by the University of Alberta’s BLINC Lab and exert herculean strength on hand cycles provided by the Edmonton Paralympic Sports Association.
Real life superpowers
Humanity’s first superhumans were likely medieval knights, said Tom Yohemas, who will talk about knights at Dark Matters on behalf of the Knights of the Northern Realm (a living history group in Edmonton that researches 14th century knights).
“They would be superhuman to the average peasant,” he said, seemingly invulnerable, possessed of extraordinary skills, wealth, weapons and legal rights, and capable of terrible violence and destruction.
The 14th century was also the time people started using pikes, longbows and other tactics to counter the invincibility of the knight, Yohemas said.
“They were starting to find the weaknesses in these superhumans – the kryptonite.”
Yohemas noted knights are still commonplace in today’s superhero comics, with characters such as Prince Valiant, Iron Man and the Black Knight all inspired by them.
“It seems our love of these superheroes of the middle ages has never gone away.”
Yohemas and the Knights of the Northern Realm will stage a mock duel with medieval weapons and armour as part of Dark Matters.
U of A geneticist Torah Kachur will speak at Dark Matters on how science could help humans get superpowers.
Geckos can crawl up almost any surface because their feet are covered with hairs, Kachur said as an example – hairs so tiny they’re affected by the van der Waals forces that bind molecules of a substance together and end up temporarily fusing with any surface they touch, allowing the gecko to climb despite its weight. Researchers have now developed gloves that exploit these forces, enabling a wearer with really strong arms to wall-crawl like Spider-Man.
Human skin can’t change colour and texture like that of the octopus for nigh-invisibility, but scientists have discovered materials that are effectively invisible to certain wavelengths of life, Kachur said. Gene therapy could theoretically give your eyes more photoreceptors so you could see UV and infrared light like a cuttlefish.
Medical science has found many conditions that can give people apparent superpowers, Kachur and Premont-Schwarz said. Some people have extra taste buds on their tongue, for example, granting them super-taste, while others have the “double muscle” mutation which provides a sort of super-strength. People with congenital analgesia might seem invulnerable as they can’t feel pain, but are actually anything but, as their condition prevents them from spotting dangerous wounds and burns.
People are fascinated by superpowers because they want to push the limits of the possible, Kachur said.
“We are jealous of other abilities found in nature, and we want to be able to figure out how to do them.”
Dark Matters runs from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Jan 23. Tickets are $25.95. See telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca for details.
