5 Superpowers We All Had as Babies (According to Science)
To many of us, kids are just a squishy bundle of preciousness that can't even take a decent punch. If there's anything super about them it's their ability to produce a seemingly infinite amount of poop. But you only think this because, like most super geniuses, babies revel in deception because they answer to no god. Not unlike Clark Kent, babies everywhere managed to fool the world with their mild-mannered public persona, masking the amazing superpowers nearly all of them possess.
Slap a pair of tights on any random toddler, and you have a bona fide superhero (or, realistically, supervillain). The many kick-ass powers we lost as we got older include:
#5.
Tiny Telepathy
When deprived of one sense or a skill, a person usually compensates for it in some other way. That's why blind people have amazing hearing and out-of-shape comedy writers are incredible in bed. In the same way, babies who have yet to fully acquire language learn pretty fast how to read the nonverbal emotional states of the adults around them. In fact, they are so creepily skilled at reading your face and body language that experts compare it to "mind reading."
You blame me for never making it as a professional dancer, mommy.
In 2007, the team at the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences conducted an experiment with 18-month old toddlers found they become so sensitive to the subtlest psychological changes in a person's expressions that it might actually explain why they always cry when you come anywhere near them. They can feel the deep-seeded hatred for all things baby under that fake smile of yours.
It gets weirder.
See, their mind-reading doesn't end with fellow humans. A study from Brigham Young University has shown that kids not even six-months old who have never been confronted with a dog in their entire lives, could easily match the different barks of a canine with their corresponding pictures. Which is interesting because HOLY SHIT BABIES CAN UNDERSTAND ANIMALS!
Sadly, these amazing abilities get lost the minute the babies learn how to talk and get their hands on Twitter, becoming the modern age nonverbal-communication cripples. Before that though, they are basically Lil' Professor Xaviers.
You are... utterly disgusted and... thoroughly depressed. Did I get that right, daddy?
#4.
Extreme Eyesight
Take a look at this picture of two monkeys and see if you can tell the difference between them:
Can't do it, right? You can look at them all you want, but as far as your brain is concerned, both monkeys look equally attractive. We certainly couldn't pick them out from a room full of other sexy primates... but at six months old we totally could!
In an experiment conducted at the University of Sheffield and the University College London, a group of six- and nine-month olds were shown two sets of human and monkey headshots (courtesy of London Police's Primate Crime Division), each including one face they had seen before. Both groups easily recognized the familiar human face among the pictures, but when it came to the monkeys, only the six-month olds could tell one animal from the other.
The results didn't even change even when the pictures were shown to them upside down. It would seem that these six-month olds display a kind of hyper-attentiveness beyond even an intelligent adult; running around the world and absorbing every detail. You're right. Just like Dr. House.
The nine month-old babies didn't fare so well. How exactly do babies go from Mini Monks to primate racists in just three short months? Well, the researchers theorize that as we get older our brains rearrange themselves to only focus on the overall "important" differences between human faces, causing our super senses to rapidly decline, never to be as sharp as when we were barely 0.5 year old. This neuro-remodeling is also what robs us of our other visual super power: Cartoon Vision.
A 2008 study performed in England is hinting at the possibility that kids have an unfiltered perception of the world around them, processing "virgin" colors in a totally different and more intense way than adults do.
Dad running out on your mom, as viewed by your five-month-old self
The thing is, adult brains are very busy and don't have time for such trifle things as actually "seeing" colors. From the time we acquire language (seven to nine months old), our brains start perceiving only the "idea" of a color rather than the real thing, unlike all the toddlers who see the world for what it really is. It's like us adults are living in a perpetual Matrix where everything we see is a lie, and all infant babies are Neo.
#3.
Hyper Hearing
Studies show that babies can hear like freaking Daredevil, even without the aid of blindness. Millennia ago, this ability was essential to the survival of our early ancestors, as it allowed them to pick out the faint sound of a herd of saber-toothed squirrels plotting their bloody-murder behind the nearest rock.
Similarly, to a baby's ear, every sound is "vital" and equally audible, be it the person talking right in front of them, or mom in the next room. As we age though, our modern brains start to focus only on a very narrow band of sound, pushing everything "nonessential"--like the voices of adults not currently giving you candy--to the background.
You can have some candy
only after you clean your room
Science is additionally claiming that at merely a few days old, human babies can tell the difference between their native tongue and a foreign language. Imagine if you were in their position, one day snuggled warmly in your bed when suddenly someone rudely yanks you out and transports you to a strange and unfamiliar place populated by giants who constantly produce unintelligible noises. Then, after just a few dozen hours, you can tell which noise doesn't quite fit in with the other. Sure, it would make you basically the least impressive X-Man, but that shit still borders on mutant abilities.
babies might have great recognition skills, but their eyesight is terrible. at ages when babies are still breast-feeding their eyesight is something like 20/400 or effectively blind. the purpose of this is so they form a bond with their mother while they are of breast-feeding age and is why babies who are breast-fed grow up to be more intelligent and form better and closer relationships to the people around them.
Reply[citation needed]
That's a Parasect, evolution of Paras. It's a Pokemon.
ReplyWhat the f**k is this shit?
ReplyIt looks like a weird Goomba with claws....but, hell, I grew up in the Mario age. I had to read the comments to see what it actually was.
I laugh but now I am sad my niece is going to be a f******d in a couple more years
Reply"making all babies giant nerds by nature." Babies are giant, aye? I prep my rocket launcher.
ReplyWell, to be fair not all humans lose their "brown" fat into adulthood. Certain cold weather civilizations (Inuits, Mongolians etc.) tend to have a lot more brown fat later in life to stave off the frigid environment they've lived in for millenia.
Reply"What the f**k is this shit?"
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesParasect
Excecute Muk Dewgong Pidgeotto Lapras Vulpix Rhidon (And this is where I kill myself).
Articuno, Jinx, Nidorina, Beedril, Hunter, Squirtle, Chansey ;D
(I'll kill myself too lol)
Tangela, Kangaskhan, Horsey, Seadra, Goldeen, Seaking, Staryu, Starmie....I hate myself.
"What the f**k is this shit?"
ReplyWell, it appears to be a mutated hybrid of a crab and a sentient rubber ball
I don't see the rubber ball.
#5 interests me. I had delayed visual development and was pretty much blind as a small baby, and I grew up unable to recognise faces or make sense of expressions.
Replythey forgot babies don't get broken bones
ReplyBabies don't get broken bones? Holy crap, they are magic!
Brigham Young University??? Really? You trust that source? A college that's named after a racist Mormon leader?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesHey, good point. I guess everyone who does research there is an idiot.
Yeah really, I guess everybody that has anything to do with any institution named after one of the founding fathers or pioneers of the US must be an inbred bigoted native-murdering asshole.
I'm so glad we all agree with each other.
that's like saying you can't trust your dad who tells you drugs are bad cos he smokes.. =/
This is complete and utter bull if only because it potentially lends credence to the godawful Baby Geniuses movies.
ReplyWHO'S THAT f**kING s**t? IT'S PARASECT!
ReplyWhen I saw the "What the f**k is this s**t?" caption on the last pic, I imagined it being said in a Scottish accent.
Reply"What the f**k is this s**t?"
ReplyOh God I laughed SOOO HARD!! XD
Ooh, ooh! I know what it is! IT'S PARASECT!
ReplyNot anymore, that mess wouldn't even qualify as a shiny Parasect.
We had gills as babies. Enough said.
ReplyBullshit.The gill slits, not the gills were present. The gill slits or pharyngeal pouches are conserved from early vertebrates. Key structures are derived from the arches which are separated by the slits. These structures include the jaw, inner ear bones, cranial nerves, and major blood vessels. That is why they are conserved.
the last picture, it looks like a parasect
ReplyIf only there was a London Police Service. Got linked here from TVTropes. The great time-wasting crap site, that linked to this, great time-wasting crap.
ReplyAll right, I hate to be a dick about this, but I'm studying for neuroscience exams at UCL, and that last entry is a wild misrepresentation of neuronal development. About half of your neurons die over the course of development, but the ones they aren't forming active circuits when they do it, and processes like myelination and synaptic plasticity make your brain fire more efficiently as you age, with myelination having been shown to last into at least your 20s, and maybe as late as 40s. This is like saying a truck full of tires goes faster than a race car because it has more rubber, its about how you use it, not how much you got.
ReplyExcept if you have more then conceivably you can use more. Whether or not that actually happens is immaterial