Chasing Captain America

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 Marvels 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 WhitfieldIntroduction: The Start of the Star-Spangled Avenger1: Newsflash: Captain America Comes in from the Cold2: Superhero Science Project: Sowing the Seeds for a Super Soldier Serum3: Human! Can Captain America Overcome the Endangered Species inside Each of Us?4: Shape! Can We A.I.M. to Make the Star Spangled Avenger? 5: Muscles in Motion! Stem Cells, Steroids and the Sentinel of Liberty6: Think! Putting Kapow and Know-How into Cap's Cranium 7: Longevity! The Steve Rogers Regeneration and Retirement Project8: Creating Captain America: Engineering a Super Soldier with Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll9: Behold the Future! What's to Come for Captain America?10: Pre-Evolving Humanity for Future Frontiers: Bioengineered Superheroes in Space11: The Ethical Implications of Captain America: Are We Obliged to Enhance Our Species?|Paul Zehr, Ph.D. (neuroscience), is an award-winning science communicator, professor, author, and martial artist. He is the director of the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Victoria. His previous books Becoming Batman, Inventing Iron Man, and Project Superhero use superheroes as metaphors to explore the science of human potential. He writes for Psychology Todayand Scientific American, among other publications.|"Chasing Captain America is an exhilarating and illuminating romp through the wild frontiers of real science that until recently only existed in the pages of comic books." -Daniel H. Wilson, bestselling author of Robopocalypse "With Chasing Captain America, E. Paul Zehr once again takes the reader on a tour of cutting-edge science while exploring an iconic superhero, this time Steve Rogers, the Sentinel of Liberty. Zehr writes with the expertise of a practicing scientist, the clarity of an experienced teacher, and the unabashed enthusiasm of a comic book fan, resulting in a book that's a joy to read and mindblowing in its scope and detail. Chasing Captain America is a must-read if you're a science nerd, comics geek, or both." -Mark D. White, author of The Virtues of Captain America and chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY "A fascinating study of the real-life potential for a superhuman, deeply researched, philosophically challenging, and often disturbingly plausible." -Warren Ellis, author of Normal, Gun Machine, and Transmetropolitan