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#The gadgets that give you SUPERPOWERS: Spiderman-style gloves, lenses with super sight and Iron man suits become a reality By Sarah Griffiths and Victoria Woollaston for Mailonline Published: 08:14 GMT, 22 may 2015 Updated: 08:14 GMT, 22 may 2015 The technology to transform yourself into your favourite superhero is quickly becoming a reality-thankfully without the outlandish Lycra wardrobe. From gloves that let you scale skyscrapers like Spiderman, to implants that could give you the self-healing powers of Wolverine, researchers are putting these sci-fi notions within our grasp. And the innovations could soon benefit the military, astronauts and even everyday consumers. Scroll down for videos A glimpse into this world of extraordinary gloves, glasses and suits was showcased recently in an issue of How It Works magazine. IRON MAN'S HIGH-TECH SUIT Fans of Robert Downey Jnr's Iron man can buy themselves a red exoskeleton-providing they have a spare $1 million (£659, 000 A Japanese electronics firm is selling a 13ft (four metre) mechanical suit on Amazon that can be controlled by an iphone, or by stepping foot inside the device. Called Kuratas, the five tonne, four-wheeled device with 30 motors can even fire BB pellets and comes in a choice of 16 colours. Another suit, designed by the US ARMY, features a high-pressure hydraulic system to enhance a soldier strength, agility and endurance. Such exoskeletons can also help workers operate heavy machinery, carry the weight of heavy tools and work for longer between breaks. Called the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (Talos it effectively gives its wearer superpowers, such as superhuman strength and a way of deflecting bullets, but it is a work in progress. Two years ago, the US Special Operations Command (Ussocom) called on scientists to develop a suit reminiscent of the version seen in the Iron man films that uses nanotechnology -and a progress report is expected soon. It is intended to function as a'practical exoskeleton 'and protect soldiers from shrapnel and bullets using Kevlar and nanotechnology. The suit would also give people Superman-like powers, such as being bulletproof and this is expected to build on work by an MIT professor who is currently developing'liquid armour'.'Professor Gareth Mckinley has been working on his technology for 12 years, which is focused on the flow of unusual materials. Once fully developed, the armour could transform from a liquid to a solid in a fraction of a second when under the influence of a magnetic field, or electric current. It would also be able to monitor a soldier's heart rate, hydration levels and core temperature. SPIDERMAN: CLIMBING WALLS AND SPIDER SENSEWHILE we will have to wait for suits that give humans the powers of Iron man and Superman, technology already exists that let people climb walls like Spiderman. Scientists from Stanford university recently devised a climbing system inspired by geckos that enables humans to scale vertical glass. During tests, an 11-stone (70kg) volunteer crawled up a 12ft (4 metre) pane using just sticky attachments on his hands and feet-just like the webbed hero. The gloves use the same natural molecular forces that allow gecko lizards to walk on ceilings-hairs on their feet that create an electrostatic force known as Van der waals. This force causes neighbouring molecules to be attracted to each other. Although very weak the effect is multiplied by thousands of tiny hairs that cover a gecko's toes, allowing them to stick firmly to surfaces. Adopting the same principle, scientists created tiny tiles called'microwedges'to generate Van der waals forces and produce a dry adhesive even more efficient than the gecko's Dr Elliot Hawkes wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface:''Using this system, a human of mass 70 kg (11 stone) successfully ascended a 3. 6-metre (11 ft) vertical glass wall with 140 square centimetres of gecko-inspired dry adhesives in each hand.''We tested hundreds of individual steps on glass with the 70kg (11 stone) climber and 140 square centimetres of adhesive without failure.''Of course, Spiderman has more powers than scaling towers. His'spider sense',for example, alerts him to imminent threats. A suit invented by engineers at the University of Illinois gives wearers 360-degree awareness of the environment around their body. It is so sensitive that, in trials, blindfolded wearers armed with'cardboard ninja stars'were able to score direct hits on anyone who strayed too close. The suit, built by Victor Mateevitsi, uses small robotic arms connected to an ultrasonic sonar system. When the suit's microphones pick up ultrasonic reflections from objects, the arms respond by pressing down on the wearer's body increasing the pressure as the object moves closer. The suit has seven such modules so that the wearer has as close to 360 degrees of ultrasonic sonar coverage as possible. Mr Mateevitsi told New Scientist:''When someone is punching Spiderman, he feels the sensation and can avoid it.''Our suit is the same concept.''SUPERMAN-SUPERVISIONMEANWHILE, a recently unveiled range of contact lenses was designed to give wearers telescopic vision like comic book hero Superman. In particular, they were designed to restore the sight of people suffering from age-related macular degeneration, or blindness. Researchers from the University of California, San diego and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EDFL) in Switzerland fitted a traditional contact lens with a magnifying ring which, when worn with a pair of Samsung 3d glasses, can magnify scenes by 2. 8 times. The contact lenses are 8mm in diameter, 1mm thick in the middle of the lens and 1. 17mm thick in a magnifying ring around the edge. Small aluminium mirrors are fitted into this magnifying ring. These mirrors bounce the light from objects in front of the wearer approximately four times within this ring before sending the image to the retina. By the time this image hits the retina it appears magnified by almost three times. PROFESSOR XAVIER-MIND CONTROLAND just like Professor X in X men, it is already possible to control objects with the mind. A company called Emotiv adapted a $499 (£324) gaming headset that lets wearers control on-screen and physical objects with their brain as part of a racing game. A riveris wired up to the electroencephalography (EEG) headset and the device is trained to read their unique brain patterns. They first clear their mind to train the headset to their neutral state and then think of a repetitive task that will be associated with driving the car. Once the headset has been calibrated, the game begins and the driver can control the shoebox-sized vehicle by thinking about their repetitive task. The Emotive headsets are embedded with sensors that record electrical activity along the wearer scalp, forehead and above the right ear. These sensors measure and monitor brain waves and these patterns are converted to commands using a brain-computer interface. The technology is currently a proof-of-concept and there are no immediate plans to release the game and headset. However, the EPOC Emotiv headset is available from $499 (£324) and it will work with existing brain-computer interface games and software that work with EEG readings. The Emotiv headset used for the demonstration is called Insight and is available to buy now. WOLVERINE-SUPER-HEALING POWERSIN the X men films, Wolverine has mutant powers which mean he can heal himself-even when he shot, or is thrown from a building. And researchers in the US are working on an implant that would make this useful superhuman ability to heal a reality. The Electrx-pronounced'electrics'-concept involves implanting tiny devices into patientsbodies that use electric impulses to monitor and fix vital organs. The program is being sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa. As it is sits inside the body, the implant would use electric impulses to monitor the health of the body organs. If it spots that an organ is infected, injured or failing, it would stimulate the nerves needed to get the affected organ functioning effectively again. The idea behind the implant is based on the body natural monitoring system known as neuromodulation. In the body peripheral nervous system, neuromodulation monitors the status of organs and manages how they respond to disease. But, when a person is injured sick or, this process can be weakened and doesn work as well as it should. In some cases it can cause people to become more ill as the body fails to fight the infection. The implant being proposed by Darpa would give this natural process a boost, and prevent it from going wrong. Current medical neuromodulation devices are large and difficult to implant, but Darpa's implant would be small enough to target precise nerve endings m

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