Wim Holf, Iceman. His super power? The ability to withstand ridiculous cold. Meet Wim Hof, a man who runs barefoot through snow, can survive temperatures that would kill a normal man, and who climbed up Mount Everest wearing shorts. The last part is not a joke, unbelievably. Known as “The Ice Man,†Wim Hof has been setting and breaking (his own usually) records concerning the cold. What are some of the outrageous feats this “Ice Man†has accomplished? Ran a half-marathon in his bare feet 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle Swam under the ice at the North Pole for 80 meters Stood in a 5-foot tall plexiglass container filled with ice for an hour and 12 minutes Climbed Mount Everest with no protection other than a pair of shorts Many men and women have died or become seriously injured/sick/frostbitten climbing Mount Everest, and many people come away from the experience missing a finger or two. Dr. Ken Kamler knows first-hand about the dangers of Mount Everest, and stated that “people are always looking for new firsts on Everest. It’s been climbed so many times now, people climb it without oxygen, they … they climb it with all different kinds of handicaps. But no one has come close to climbing Everest in those kinds of conditions,†Dr. Kamler said. “It’s … it’s almost inconceivable.†How did Hof discover his “talent� Well, he claims that about 20 years ago “I had a stroll like this in the park with somebody and I saw the ice and I thought, what would happen if I go in there. I was really attracted to it. I went in, got rid of my clothes. Thirty seconds I was in,†Hof said. “Tremendous good feeling when I came out and since then, I repeated it every day.†It’s straight out of a comic book, except Hof can’t shoot ice out of his hands… yet. Here’s what happens to a normal person when they are exposed to the cold temperatures that Hof shrugs off: Normally, when a person is exposed to freezing temperatures for a prolonged period of time, the body goes into survival mode, as its liquids begin to freeze. Frostbite sets in, and in order to save the major organs, the body sacrifices blood flow to the extremities, cutting circulation from the fingers, toes, ears and nose to keep the blood flowing to the organs necessary for survival. If not treated immediately, the damage to these extremities is irreversible. The other danger is hypothermia, an abnormally low body temperature. At about 90 degrees, body functions start shutting down, and once that starts, you could be dead within minutes. For Hof, his skin just turns a little pink. Scientists can’t see anything different or weird about his body, so believe that his incredible tolerance to the cold must be in his head.