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Superman Lives
In 1999, a former professional sprinter gave birth to a bouncing baby boy in Berlin, Germany. For the past 4 years the baby boy has had a somewhat normal life - that is until researchers found out about him.
Researchers are not releasing much information and the family wishes to remain private. What they will say is that the boy is able to hold weights weighing nearly 10 pounds out to his side with his arms completely extended. Most adults have trouble doing this with half that weight. At 4 years old, the boy is extremely muscular displaying bulging calves and biceps. His muscle mass is twice that of normal 4 year old children and his fat content one half as much. He is as near a perfect specimen of man as you can possibly get.
Why he is so strong
Researchers have explained that the superhuman strength is the result of a mutated gene that is intended to restrict the production of myostatin. Myostatin, in the human body, limits the growth of muscles. In rare cases, one copy may be mutated producing extremely powerfully built people. The boys mother, father, uncle, and 3 other close relatives all have mutated copies and are know to be very muscular and extremely strong. In the boys case, it is even stranger - he has both copies of the DNA segment mutated, something scientists have never seen before. The result - a human that may grow to enormous proportions with the ability to lift extreme amounts of weight and possibly run faster than any human to date.
Researchers had already known that myostatin restricts muscle growth and knew that drugs limiting its production would produce super mice. Such super mice had been created in early 1997. Researchers are happy to report that the boy is perfectly healthy right now but fear that he may suffer heart or other ailments as he grows older. |