On the face of it, humans are a bit breakable. We have these hard skeletons that can crack if you have a tumble. But if we were indestructible, like a superhero, then we’d never have to worry about ending up in plaster! So what’s the best way?

First, we try removing the problem – it’s our bones that break, so let’s get rid of them altogether. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work very well. Without our bones we’d basically be blobs and unable to move anywhere.

Okay, metal is tough, right? How about taking inspiration from knights in armour and making our skin solid metal? The problem with metal is that if you hit it hard enough, it will actually bend. So, your metal skin would soon be covered with dents, and you’d end up completely bent out of shape.

What we need is something that can take the knocks without changing shape permanently. What we need is something like rubber, something ‘elastic.’ Elastic materials deform when you hit or stretch them, but then they spring back to their original shape. In fact, there are new man-made elastic materials that can stretch up to 100 times longer!

If we were made of elastic, we’d be very hard to break, but there would be a downside. We’d be very, very bouncy, and if we weren't careful, we'd end up crashing around the house like an oversized rubber ball and breaking everything around us. Of course, we could always make our house elastic too. Show less