News Health & Medicine

What Spider-Man gets right — and wrong — about turning off superpowers

An inhibitor in the movie uses a real-world therapy called RNA interference

Spider-Man swings through skyscrapers while a villain below him throws a pair of silver boomerangs. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker builds a superpower inhibitor to control some new powers.

In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the web-slinger builds a superpower inhibitor. It’s based on real science for treating diseases.

Sony Pictures

By Tina Hesman Saey

Note: Slight spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

A plot device in the new Spider-Man movie is real-world science. A trick used to turn off fictional superpowers in the movie is based on actual genetic therapies for rare diseases.