Chasing Captain America: how advances in science, engineering, and biotechnology will produce a superhuman

Description

"Could we create a real-life superhero by changing human biology itself? The form and function of the human body, once entirely delimited by nature, are now fluid concepts thanks to recent advances in biomedical science and engineering. Professor, author, and comic book enthusiast E. Paul Zehr uses Marvel's Captain America--an ordinary man turned into an extraordinary hero, thanks to a military science experiment--as an entry-point to this brave new world of science, no longer limited to the realm of fiction. With our ever-expanding scientific and technological prowess, human biological adaptability is now in our fallible human hands. Thanks to the convergence of biology, engineering, and technology, we can now alter our abilities through surgery, pharmaceutical enhancement, technological fusion, and genetic engineering. Written in an accessible manner, Chasing Captain America explores these areas and more, asking what the real limits of being human are, how far we should bend those limits, and how we may be forced to reshape human biology if we are to colonize planets like Mars."--;Foreword / by Simon Whitfield -- Prelude : the origin of the first Avenger... -- News flash : Captain America comes in from the cold -- Superhero science project : sowing the seeds for a super soldier serum -- Human! : can Captain America overcome the endangered species inside each of us? -- Shape! : can we A.I.M. to make the star-spangled Avenger? -- Muscles in motion! : stem cells, steroids, and the sentinel of liberty -- Think! : putting kapow and know-how into Cap's cranium -- Longevity! : the Steve Rogers regeneration and retirement project -- Creating Captain America : engineering a super soldier with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll -- Behold the future! : what's to come for Captain America? -- Pre-evolving humanity for future frontiers : bioengineered superheroes in space -- The ethical implications of Captain America : are we obliged to enhance ourselves? -- Afterword / by Nicole Stott.