Superboy Found!

Reading like something out of the origin issue of a Marvel comic, the NY Times is reporting that scientists have discovered a young boy with an amazing genetic abnormality that gives him super strength. The abnormality is a double absence of the gene for producing the chemical myostatin, and had previously been found in mice and cattle, but never in humans before. While the long-term health effects are unknown, right now the 4 year-old boy is lifting more than my girlfriend does when she lifts weights. The discovery of course means that there are possibilities for treating other people with muscle-wasting diseases, but more importantly it raises the prospect that we’ll all be able to genmod ourselves to Schwarzeneger-like phyisiques in the not-to-distant future.