Extreme Abilities: Amazing Human Feats and the Simple Science Behind Them
CONTENTS Introduction Taking It to the Max Chapter 1 Masters of Muscle Chapter 2 Pretzel People Chapter 3 Mind-Boggling Memorizers Chapter 4 Ultra-long Experts Chapter 5 Body Brain Bosses Chapter 6 Deep-Sea Mermaids and Men Chapter 7 Speed Demons Chapter 8 Mathemagicians Chapter 9 Brave Balancers Acknowledgments Index Selected Sources Image Credits 4 6 14 22 30 38 46 54 62 70 78 79 84 87
Introduction TAKING IT to the MAX Over 200 bones About 640 muscles Roughly 86 billion brain cells Your body is complicated sophisticated and fascinating Everything you do from lifting a spoonful of cereal to your mouth to writing a test requires many body parts to communicate and coordinate For your entire life your body has been achieving wondrous things You began balancing on two feet and then maybe on two wheels You started counting blocks and then adding numbers Every day your body is using all those parts from bones to brain while adapting and learning new skills And sometimes just sometimes the skills go beyond the norm In your case maybe you can cross your eyes or curl your tongue Maybe you’re fantastic at cartwheeling or Hula-Hooping Maybe you can easily remember tons of weird facts 4
The people you’ll meet in this book can do amazing things too even more than amazing things so extreme in fact they might seem impossible How about hoisting a horse Walking around the world Solving tough math problems in mere seconds These people will astound you and their feats may seem magical But almost all of these amazing achievements can be explained by science the science of the human body As we get to know these men and women we’ll explore how their bodies and brains work together to make the seemingly impossible possible We’ll also take a peek at the risks behind these activities and there are plenty It’s important to remember that the people in this book either were born with these traits or trained long and hard to get them Never put yourself in danger by trying to copy what they’ve done While we’ll tell you some ways you can safely improve your skills in these areas always respect your own limits Go slowly listen to your body and talk to an adult before pushing yourself By proceeding at your personal pace you too might someday have abilities worth bragging about Now let’s see the crazy things people can do 5
