Good LORD... X-Men FOR REAL!!!

[jrv3034]

Gotta wonder how much truth there is behind this:

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040115-093201-5597r.htm

If it is true, I hope they don't turn her into some sort of guinea pig. After all, she's human, I think:eek:

[Mr. Anderson]

Odd, very odd .... I'd love to see some tests done on this and a better description of what she 'sees'.

Could be cool though. :D

D

[jrv3034]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
I'd love to see some tests done on this and a better description of what she 'sees'.

Yeah, I'm thinking it might be some kind of psychic ability more than actual x-ray vision. Sort of she can sense what is in there and where everything is. I don't know... I wonder if it's only on people, or if she can also see through walls.:confused:

[themadchemist]

lemme know when she starts flyin' around the room, k?

[pooky]

Don't get your hopes up. Just based on the way the story's written, I'd say attention-getting scam. I've been wrong before, though...

[Doctor Q]

If they put you to work driving a snowmobile at age 3, you might turn out to be a little odd too.

[Megaquad]

Yes, we need more X-Men!

[jrv3034]

My favorite part:

"Natasha started to talk when she was only 6 months old. At 1, she could already recite Pushkin and Nekrasov by heart. By 3, Natasha mastered the alphabet and learned to operate a snowmobile."

Can she say "John Travolta"?:D

[wdlove]

A very interesting story indeed. They need to devise a real test. Possibly a patient that has had surgery. If it was a blind test, she would have no prior knowledge of the subject. With true x-ray vision she should be able to discribe the diffferences as noted.

[eclipse525]

Can we say, "Chernobyl"?

OR

Alien cross-breeding?


Hmmmm.........:rolleyes:

~e

[Doctor Q]

Kidding aside, we humans see the so-called "visible" part of the spectrum. There must be a little variation from person to person, so it makes sense that now and then a person will see something on the infrared or ultraviolet side of the spectrum that most people can't see. I wonder if anybody has studied this and whether it gives you any practical skill to have your visible spectrum be a little off the normal scale. Having "x-ray vision" could just be an extreme form of this variation.

[jayscheuerle]

It's a crock.

Even if she could see X-rays, you'd need an xray generator behind the body she was staring at.

Something would either have to be emitting from the body (or passing through) for her eyes to see anything.

Could be she's lost or mind (or psychic- same thing)...

[virividox]

weird

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
we humans see the so-called "visible" part of the spectrum. There must be a little variation from person to person, so it makes sense that now and then a person will see something on the infrared or ultraviolet side of the spectrum that most people can't see.

Near IR can let you see heat sources, near UV isn't all that useful unless you're a bee looking at flowers :D

Maybe its more than *seeing* with her eyes - the images might not come from them, just get processed in the same part of the brain.

But regardless, they didn't provide enough info on how she sees through the body, is it only human tissue, or can she see through wood, metal, etc.

Sounds like a scam of some sort - or just attention getting.

D

[eclipse525]

Like most of you, i am VERY skeptical BUT cosidering that we use something like 7 percent of our Brain capacity, it is very possible that we can do and be much more that what we presently believe to be in the eyes of today's world or present knowledge. I think we are capable of some spectacular things. Unfortuneately we haven't developed to that point yet BUT I do believe a freak occurance is quite possible. Just like a child prodigy or someone with psychic abilities.

A little Skepticism is healthy BUT too much Skepticism is blinding.

~e

[wdlove]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
Kidding aside, we humans see the so-called "visible" part of the spectrum. There must be a little variation from person to person, so it makes sense that now and then a person will see something on the infrared or ultraviolet side of the spectrum that most people can't see. I wonder if anybody has studied this and whether it gives you any practical skill to have your visible spectrum be a little off the normal scale. Having "x-ray vision" could just be an extreme form of this variation.

A nice scholarly explanation Doctor Q. I will wait for further investigation on the matter before making a final judgement.

[hvfsl]

I dont think its any kind of psychic power (if psychic powers excist at all). If psychic powers were real, then would have to be based on the rules of this universe, just like if this childs powers are real, they have to be based on the laws of physics.

If it is real I expect it is some kind of sonar/ultra sound ability, a bit like bats have which let them see.

But seeing as it is from Russia, it looks like it might be a fake (poor mother trying to get attention and money).

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by eclipse525
Like most of you, i am VERY skeptical BUT cosidering that we use something like 7 percent of our Brain capacity, it is very possible that we can do and be much more that what we presently believe to be in the eyes of today's world or present knowledge. I think we are capable of some spectacular things. Unfortuneately we haven't developed to that point yet BUT I do believe a freak occurance is quite possible. Just like a child prodigy or someone with psychic abilities.

A little Skepticism is healthy BUT too much Skepticism is blinding.

~e

I just think we only use 7% of our brains storage space, not processing power. This is because as you get older the amount of the brain that you uses goes up (but it does decline after you get to a certain age). This might be because you have stored more information.

[amin]

pardon my ignorance, but is the washington times a reputable newspaper?

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Even if she could see X-rays, you'd need an xray generator behind the body she was staring at.

Something would either have to be emitting from the body (or passing through) for her eyes to see anything.What is the scientific explanation for how Superman does it?

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
What is the scientific explanation for how Superman does it?

:p :p :p :p :p :p :p :p :p

lol. I just kryptonited my pants... :D

[wHo_tHe]

Originally posted by amin
pardon my ignorance, but is the washington times a reputable newspaper? It's owned by the Unification church (Rev. Sun Myung Moon, i.e., the "Moonies") and operated largely as a voice of conservatism. They also now own UPI (United Press International), who ostensibly authored this story.

Sadly, UPI was once a top-level news service, is now basically crap not to be trusted or believed.

It'd be cool if it was true, though.

[beez7777]

Originally posted by hvfsl
I just think we only use 7% of our brains storage space, not processing power. This is because as you get older the amount of the brain that you uses goes up (but it does decline after you get to a certain age). This might be because you have stored more information.

no, we are using every one of the neurons in our brains. however, our potential has not yet been reached, obviously, and that 7% or whatever (you cant really say exactly what it is) is just to show that we have not yet come close to reaching that potential.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by beez7777
no, we are using every one of the neurons in our brains. however, our potential has not yet been reached, obviously, and that 7% or whatever (you cant really say exactly what it is) is just to show that we have not yet come close to reaching that potential.

That regularly quoted, extremely low number has to do with how much of our brain we are using at any one time. To use more than that at once would lead to sensory overload, signals crossing, convulsions, seizures, etc.

That's all we're supposed to use. That's how much any mammal uses on the average.

[eclipse525]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
That regularly quoted, extremely low number has to do with how much of our brain we are using at any one time. To use more than that at once would lead to sensory overload, signals crossing, convulsions, seizures, etc.

That's all we're supposed to use. That's how much any mammal uses on the average.


Hence your anwser.

Think outside the box. Think potential and not limitations. The capacity is there but we haven't develop to that point yet BUT it will. Unfortuneately not in our lifetime. The beautiful thing is that there some exceptional people that come along every once in a while that kinda give us a glimpse of our potential.


~e

[Durandal7]

If you read the article you will notice that they credit the source to Pravda. I'm not sure how many of you have actually seen the Russian "news" source called Pravda but it is one of the biggest purveyors of crap I have ever seen.

Judge for yourslef: http://english.pravda.ru/science/

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by eclipse525
Hence your anwser.

Think outside the box. Think potential and not limitations. The capacity is there but we haven't develop to that point yet BUT it will. Unfortuneately not in our lifetime. The beautiful thing is that there some exceptional people that come along every once in a while that kinda give us a glimpse of our potential.


~e

You miss the point.

There's a reason we don't use our whole brain at once. Nature doesn't build in a giant potential waste of space just waiting to be used. The statistic is meaningless. And you don't need it to boost the idea that we can evolve new abilities. Most anything can happen. But it's a lot more believable when it falls within the laws of the universe we know. Anything else is purely speculative. By definition.

Potential is personal. There is no species potential as we have nothing to measure it as falling less to. There will always be (and always have been) those standouts who take humanity to new hights, but they're hardly evolutionary jumps, just wonderful bright spots that seldom pass what kept them above the crowd onto their progeny in any discernible form.

As far as your viewpoint is concerned (what you see in your lifetime), humans won't "change" or "evolve" in any way that you can measure. They haven't really changed in 30,000 years other than by what proper and abundant diet can provide, coupled with a comparatively sedentary lifestyle, and those changes can happen within a generation. Look how much larger 2nd generations of Asian Americans are than their grandparents were at their age. They didn't "evolve" into bigger specimens.

Dreams and Sci-fi are fun and can serve as great inspiration, but it's not until the Sci-fi gets to drop the "fi" is it anything that's more than a killer concept or story with potential.

This story is tripe.

[Dros]

Originally posted by eclipse525
Hence your anwser.

Think outside the box. Think potential and not limitations. The capacity is there but we haven't develop to that point yet BUT it will. Unfortuneately not in our lifetime. The beautiful thing is that there some exceptional people that come along every once in a while that kinda give us a glimpse of our potential.
~e

The brain is an awesome creation. How many transistors in our favorite processors? 50 million or so. How many neurons in our brain?

100 billion. And each neuron connects to 1,000 to 10,000 other neurons. And there are another 5 trillion cells in there that help shape the way the neurons communicate. So it is capable of a lot.

But that article is pure junk. Weekly World News quality. No doubt about it. It is interesting to wonder if such a power would be remotely possible.

We marvel at the way dogs smell, and we could be that good at smelling with just a few changes. Dogs added that ability (or we lost it) in probably a fe hundred thousand years. Bees see the flower colors in the "non-visible" spectrum (UV? Infra-red? one of them). No reason why we couldn't. We have 3 color receptors in our eyes. Some animals have two. So we have "super powers" of vision in comparison with them. X-rays are just farther down the radiation spectrum. But it wouldn't be that useful to "see" x-rays unless you could convince people to walk in front of an x-ray source you lug around! And the high energy of the X-ray probably means that it couldn't interact with the photo receptor in your eye since it would just destroy any protein it hit rather than be captured by it, like visible spectrum light is with our eyes.

So even if our brains had untapped potential, it doesn't matter if there are physical constraints on how what we are made of interacts with the world.

OK, so I'm going on a bit long here. Just wanted to share one other cool factoid about color vision. There are some subtle differences in the three color receptors. So if I have two copies of Green-A, then I may see green a little differently from someone who is Green-B or someone that is Green-A/B. Some women already have "super" color perception, because they inactivate one of their two X chromosomes in each cell at random. So they may have one cell that is Green-A and one that is Green-B.. meaing that they will be especially acute at both those wavelengths while other women and all men will only see part of that spectrum well.

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
What is the scientific explanation for how Superman does it?

Because of his non-human parents.

Come on, follow the story line, pplleeeasse.

Originally posted by Durandal7
If you read the article you will notice that they credit the source to Pravda. I'm not sure how many of you have actually seen the Russian "news" source called Pravda but it is one of the biggest purveyors of crap I have ever seen.

Judge for yourslef: http://english.pravda.ru/science/
UFO's... Joan of Arc wasn't killed by the English... and the girl with x-ray vision all on one page... where is the national enquirer?