8 Science Experiments Inspired By Superheroes

6. Altered Humans - Quantum Biology

The X-Men are not aliens from another planet, or magical beings from another realm, they're humans with squiffy DNA (that's the technical term).

Whilst current genetic modification techniques are mostly, as you would expect, biological, there is little to suggest that the changes to the human form would be as extreme as adamantium bones. In the world of quantum biology, however, there is a chance that we might be able to crack and even change our DNA using quantum physics. Everything in biology is just chemistry, after all, and everything in chemistry is physics.

Physicist Jim Al Khalili has this crazy idea, right, that because quantum effects underpin the hydrogen bonds that hold DNA together, as our understanding of these quantum effects grows, we might also be able to alter their biological effects. He thinks that, if quantum tunnelling plays a role in the transformation of a tadpole into a frog, then why shouldn't we be able to use it to accelerate healing? Increase bone density? Regrow limbs?

The possibilities are endless.