Windows 7: A very unusual brain

Yep I knew it was humour mate I was returning the favour LOL!!

Well I tend to agree with you that learning does increase intelligence although I still stand by what i said about genetically inherited and evolutionary change.

Now I am not saying for one moment that I am particularly intelligent there are some on this forum who I ma sure think I am a bit of a dim wit but only they have their own reasons for doing so. From experience I did not hit my "straps" until after I was 40 when I picked up a book on algebra and then one by Max Born called "The Restless Universe" which took me into the wonderful world of physics in particular - quantum mechanics. Max Born - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia if you are interested. From there it all seemed like a fast roller coaster ride uphill and I don't feel I have reached the top yet.
My forte up until then had been a fairly good understanding of anatomy and physiology. However I do have a problem understanding some of the niceties of the coding in the software we use for example how some of the BSOD folks find their way around in it.

It is one of the contradictions of mass-production or in this case industrialized farming.

They need to produce a lot to keep the prices down enough to sell, but since it's not easy to predict how well will something grow they have to do it with a margin of error, so that in case they have a bad year they still have enough stuff to keep prices low enough to sell it.

If that does not happen they destroy the surplus as it would drop the prices too much as it would simply flood the market and a lot of it would still not sell as there isn't enough people buying it.

As for the rest yeah, there is quite a bit of waste. But it's unrealistic to think you could reduce it enough to matter.

I think DNA sets upper limits by affecting the choice of what you like and actual brain development.
Given the level of specialization of most fields, you are either born with that knack or you are cut out of that field. Like quantum physics/chemistry or serious engineering and the so-called rocket science (aerospace engineering).
Or music. There are a lot of wannabes, but only a few really good ones (not just from a personal standpoint)
Or businness.

I know a lot of people that can't be "upgraded" by education.

This is the main issue with intelligence tests. They are questions. With the right preparation you can fake to be far smarter than you are.
Heck you can train yourself to evade even the "truth machine" (why it's not used at all outside of movies).

Then again, there are people who could not do it anyway.

Thank you, this annoys me as well.

Talking about brains, my girlfriend's brother only has half a brain, and is perfectly healthy and normal.

Not sure why only half his brain developed, but the scans are very interesting. The top layer of the scan looks like a normal brain, but as soon as you start going deeper in the hole left side just disappears and is full of water.

Doctors said he won't survive long when he was first born, now they say he won't live past 26, and he's 25 this year and doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon. He does have epilepsy, but his seizures are getting less and less over time. He used to have them quite frequently, but in the 2 years I've known him he's only had 1.

Most curious. The top layer is the cortex, where decisions are taken, and the inner parts are where all the cabling to/from everything else to/from cortex is.

Is he a normal person otherwise? Or does this cause other issues than just seizures.

I suppose the brain grew around this "hole" so that most of the cabling is just in a different place or more compressed than normal.

While does not sound well, it's from people like him that researchers can get info on how a normal brain works.

He is very much a normal person, apart from a few things. You could sit down with him, and have a very in depth conversation about just about anything with him. He's recently graduated University with a 2:1 degree and is starting a job in November with a finance company working around the world for 2 years.

Although there are random moments where he could be token and he just stops mid-sentence, and takes a few seconds to pick back up where he stopped, and when you talk to him sometimes you can see him taking a little bit of time to process what you're saying, but this doesn't happen all that often. It doesn't seem to have stunted anything in terms of learning and development. Despite living in England, he was sent to a French school, so the first language he learnt properly was French, and picked English up from his parents, so he still managed to learn two languages at a very young age. It's quite remarkable.

That's an interesting story Everlong and the space is probably what is known as one of the two ventricles that everyone has just that his has by a congenital anomaly grown larger as the brain tissue has increase. So in fact it probably means that he still has a normal brain just that the grey and white matter have by necessity formed thinner than they would normally done.

The water you refer to is in all probability cerebro spinal fluid that is circulated through and around the brain and spinal column and is a anatomical body fact. So to all intents and purposes he really is quite normal.

But such nice story to read for a change when one sees (I do in my profession) such terrible consequence of congenital anomalies. :)