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Capable of cataloging, storing and editing information and sensations, containing perhaps 100 billion neurons connected by somewhere in the region of 5000 synapses, and in charge of coordinating some 640 muscles, energy generation, and survival, the human brain is an extraordinary thing. Yet that's just the average brain. There are some even more exceptional than others, and it's these brains that mark the expression of human achievement.
Intelligence, and thus IQ testing, is inextricably linked to the possible accomplishments of the human brain. Take, for instance, American writer Marilyn vos Savant (b. 1946) who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, has the highest IQ ever recorded. When her IQ score of 228 was published, vos Savant ditched all attempts an anonymity (previous works had been written under a pseudonym) and rose to fame with her weekly column Ask Marilyn, in which she answers all sorts puzzles and questions from readers.
Tested as a child, Marilyn vos Savant's family were aware of her remarkably high scores, but they withheld the information from her in an effort to assure her a normal childhood and prevent commercial exploitation. Now hailed as 'the smartest person in the world' , her score from the Stanford-Binet test taken at ten years of age is recognized as the highest IQ ever recorded by a child.
However there are other ways that exceptional brains reveal themselves. Ziad Fazah (b. 1954) is just one case of how a flair for languages demonstrates an extraordinary brain in action. Claiming to speak, read and write 59 languages, Fazah is a gifted Lebanese polyglot. Deciding at the age of eleven that he wanted to learn all of the world's languages, he devoted three years of his life to studying 50 languages.
What's his secret? A photographic memory helps, but Fazah admits that it's all in the daily hard slog of listening to a native speaker, studying grammar, and reciting the sounds. Approached by several intelligence agencies, Fazah instead preferred a quiet life. But you won't find him teaching at an Italian course Boston, a German course Miami or a Spanish course San Francisco, Ziad Fazah is working as a language teacher in Brazil.
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