Superman had it sweet, what with leaping tall buildings in a single bound and bending steel in his bare hands, but I’ve often felt that if I could have just one superpower — well, maybe two; flying faster than a speeding bullet would be pretty cool — it would be the ability to make things disappear.

That truck tailgating so close you only see its grill in the rearview mirror — poof! Gone in a flash.

I wouldn’t necessarily harm the driver — maybe he’d simply wind up stunned in a ditch: “Where am I? What just happened?”

Also eradicated: All those discarded nips bottles, hamburger wrappers, cigarette packs and beer cans carelessly or deliberately tossed from car windows. Ditto billboards, graffiti and leafblowers.

As a benevolent despot, I would be selective in some of the ways I wielded my awesome power. Jet Skis, ATVs and snowmobiles would be spared if operated reasonably, adhering to my terms: only in the middle of an ocean, vast desert or isolated glacier, at least 1,000 miles from any other human, unless for rescue purposes.

I also would tolerate public, outdoor use of cellphones in limited circumstances, such as to report a house fire or to photograph the landing of an alien spacecraft — which brings me to the news of two separate but tangentially related studies.

The first, published earlier this month in the journal Scientific Reports, found that spending as little as 17 minutes a day in nature, or a total of two hours a week, significantly improves overall health and well-being.

Researchers from the University of Exeter in England reached that conclusion after analyzing data from a survey of 19,806 people.

“The majority of nature visits in this research took place within just two miles of home, so even visiting local urban greenspaces seems to be a good thing,” said Dr. Matthew White of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the study. He added, “Two hours a week is hopefully a realistic target for many people, especially given that it can be spread over an entire week to get the benefit."

Fair enough. Now, onto a more unsettling finding: Excessive use of mobile devices may be causing young people to grow horns.

When I first heard this report the other day, I thought it must have emanated from The National Enquirer, Infowars or Fox News, but no — the source was the normally staid BBC, which cited a recent study by biomechanics researcher Dr. David Shahur of the University of The Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

Shahur attributed the development of spike-like growths at the base of the skull known as “external occipital protuberances” to increased texting and other mobile device communication, during which users hunched over for protracted periods.

Shahur told the network, “I have been a clinician for 20 years, and only in the last decade, increasingly I have been discovering that my patients have this growth on the skull.”

He said maintaining such an awkward position for too long — some young people reported using their devices nonstop for more than four hours a day — puts extra pressure at the point where the neck muscles meet the skull, which weighs about 10 pounds. The body compensates by developing new bone to help redistribute the weight, Shahur explained.

The BBC reported that Shahur and his colleagues analyzed more than 200 radiographs of patients between 18 and 30 years old, and found the protuberances — some as long as 1.4 inches — in 41 percent of them.

He stopped short of saying the growths were harmful but suggested they could cause problems in the future.

He told the BBC, “Imagine if you have stalactites and stalagmites, if no one is bothering them, they will just keep growing.”

Well-meaning scientists, doctors, teachers, parents, preachers and other fuddy-duddies are always warning about the consequences of various practices. Some are valid admonitions (don’t jump off the roof with an umbrella or use a cigarette lighter to check for a gas leak); others, wives’ tales (don’t crack your knuckles or go outside with wet hair).

Me, I’d just as soon not have horns sticking out of my head, so I guess I’ll hang onto my desktop computer and landline phone.

Oh, and I’ll also make sure to head out in the woods or on the water at least 17 minutes a day. Can’t hurt, right?