Spider-Man It began when Peter Parker was attending a high-school demonstration1 of radiation technology. A spider crept into the beam of radiation and bit Peter's hand. This gave him superhuman spider-like abilities. Superpowers: Superhuman strength and reflexes * Can stick to most surfaces; * Intuitive2 sense for danger; * Able to shoot and spin webs.
Why can spiders walk up walls? Some spiders can stick to almost any surface. They do this by secreting a little bit of sticky silk onto their feet as they move across the surface, anchoring their feet in place. Other spiders have millions of specially shaped, microscopic3 hairs on their legs that slip into all the nooks4 and crannies5 of a ceiling or wall, in the same way that a climber uses the cracks in a rock face to reach the top of a mountain. This also explains why you are likely to find these kind of spiders in the bathtub—they can't get a grip on the smooth surface to climb out.
Stronger than steel Anyone who has ever walked into a spider's web knows that the silk is deceptively6 strong, despite its gossamer7 appearance. Dragline silk8, which spiders use to crawl down from ceiling to floor, is the strongest of all. Weight for weight it is actually stronger than steel, holding over 280,000,000 Kg per square meter without breaking. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to farm spiders for their silk because they tend to eat each other. Daredevil Daredevil was blinded in a childhood accident. His other senses became so acute he can tell if someone's lying just by the sound of their heartbeat. * Special sonar9 sensor * Heightened sense of hearing, smell & touch * Intuitive sense for danger
Seeing with sound Daredevil's acute hearing allows him to tell when suspects are lying, just by listening to their heartbeat. But his most amazing ability is the“radar sense”, which allows him to see the world in great detail, even though he is blind. Animals like dolphins and bats use sonar to construct an image of their surroundings. They send out a high-pitched10 sound, and listen for the echo as it bounces off an object. From the echo they can gather an incredible amount of information: * The longer it takes for the echo to return, the further away the object is; * If the sound is reduced, this reveals what the object is made of; * If the sound returns at a different pitch, this shows how fast the object is moving.
Radar versus sonar Radar works in exactly the same way as sonar, but uses radio waves instead of sound waves. Sound can only travel over short distances before it becomes extremely faint, and so echoes are often difficult to detect. But radio waves can travel over great distances, and faint signals are easy to amplify, making detection easier. They are reflected best by metal objects, such as airplanes, but also work on large buildings. This is why they are used in air traffic control.
Can our senses change? After becoming blind, Daredevil's other senses became stronger. But could this happen in real life? The human brain can actually adapt itself to be as efficient as possible. Scientists have found that if the part of the brain responsible for seeing, called the visual cortex11, is not being used very much, it can take on other tasks. In blind people, the visual cortex processes information from the other senses, particularly hearing. This may be one reason why blind people are good at telling where objects or people are in a room just by listening to their breathing, or the echoes produced by a voice.
