Irreference » How to Achieve Super-Senses

Thanks to the rays of Earth’s yellow sun and his unique Kryptonian physiology, Superman’s senses are super-acute. He can hear, smell, and see better than anyone else on the planet. Unfortunately, barring technological tricks, the average good guy cannot improve his senses on the exponential order that Superman exhibits. However, it is vital to maintain healthy hearing, sight, and smell so your senses are primed to alert you to danger.

Hearing
For persons suffering hearing loss or deafness, hearing aids or cochlear implant devices can restore hearing to limited degrees of normal. People with perfect hearing should never don hearing aids to “improve” their hearing.

Essentially, a hearing aid will turn up the volume by nearly 30 decibels- amplifying all sounds to such a degree would damage your ears. For example, a running vacuum cleaner typically measures 70 to 80 decibels. The decibel “danger zone”-or point at which damage to hearing occurs-is in the range of 90 to 100 decibels. Thus, a person with normal hearing who dons a hearing aid will hear a running vacuum cleaner at 100 to 110 decibels. Some of the loudest rock concerts proudly boast loudness ranges of 120 to 135 decibels, levels that can irrevocably damage hearing by bending, shearing, or breaking the minute hair cells in a person’s ear that conduct nerve impulses from the ear to the brain.

While researchers are actively seeking ways to limit or reverse this sort of damage, the proven way to avoid hearing loss is to protect yourself from extended exposure to excessively loud noises. Protective headsets should be worn during limited exposures. The recommended measure to protect your ears is to wear foam earplug inserts. Worn correctly, the foam plugs should be rolled tightly between thumb and forefinger and then gently pushed into the ear canal so that the end of the plug is flush with the opening of the canal. You should hold the plug in place as the foam expands so that it doesn’t push its way out of the ear canal. If you practice preventive maintenance of hearing over time, you should be able to discern all the sounds associated with people signaling that they’re in distress.

Sight
Persons suffering some forms of vision loss can have their sight restored via a variety of treatments, including corneal transplants and LASIK surgery, or external aids, including glasses and contact lenses. The human norm for visual acuity is the oft-mentioned 20/20 standard as measured on the Snellen Chart. Essentially, 20/20 refers to being able to see accurately a letter of a certain size at 20 feet (6 m). The first number is the test distance, while the second is the distance from which the average person can identify the letter. Thus, 20/20 represents 100 percent efficiency in vision. Of course, the average person cannot improve visual acuity beyond 20/20 mostly because of the amount of cones present in the retina. The more densely packed a person’s cones are, the greater the ability to see long-wavelength light. People with higher densities of cones in their retinas see better as a result. Barring that genetic uniqueness, you should instead focus on protecting your vision. Consuming vitamins rich in zinc or selenium can help forestall natural retina problems with advancing age.

Avoidable physical damage to the eye is probably the greater concern. Polycarbonate lenses, such as the spectacles worn by Clark Kent to preserve his secret identity, can protect your eyes from vision-stealing injuries. Eye protection such as safety goggles or safety glasses should be worn any time small debris might be ejected into your eyes, thus scratching a lens or cornea, or worse. Ultraviolet light also poses a serious risk to vision. You know not to look directly into the sun lest you burn out your retina with focused sunlight, but indirect UV rays from relaxing on a beach or in the water can cause similar harm. That’s why it’s best to wear sunglasses in bright sun or don a hat with a wide brim. A telescope can replicate Superman’s telescopic vision, a microscope his microscopic vision, and night-vision lenses can imitate Superman’s ability to see in the dark.

Taste and Smell
The senses of taste and smell often work in tandem. Unfortunately, there is no way to become a super-taster or super-smeller. The sense of taste works when food reacts with saliva to activate the taste buds lining the surface of the tongue and parts of the throat. Gustatory nerves in the buds relay messages to the brain to identify the four basic tastes-sweet, sour, salty, and bitter-which in combinations form flavors that are remembered in the taster’s brain. Smell works when olfactory nerve cells in a person’s nasal passages sample odor molecules in the air, relaying messages directly to the brain to identify (and qualify) odors both good and bad.

How well someone tastes or smells is based directly on the number and health of these gustatory and olfactory nerve cells, either of which can be damaged by various illnesses, thus reducing a person’s sense of taste or smell. For example, tobacco use-either smoking or chewing-has been noted to reduce both senses. Nasal tumors or polyps can limit a person’s sense of smell. Blows to the head or brain trauma may also cause a cessation of these senses. Even something as simple as burning one’s tongue can degrade or remove taste buds. The good news is that both senses seem to work most acutely between the ages of 30 and 60; thus-like a good wine improving with age-a person’s olfactory and gustatory refinement improves the older one gets.