&#62; After further edit: There is recent research showing that learning can actually change brain neural connections<p>Yes, <i>of course</i> learning changes neural connections. How else would it work? Changing some chemicals won't get a brain very far.<p>But this is as far away from changing IQ as demonstrating the Casimir effect gets you to a tractor beam sucking in the _Millennium Falcon_. The famous study of the [London taxi](<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm</a>) drivers shows they have changed connections, alright, even enlarged hippocampi - but nothing about increased brain mass or volume, because it's a zero-sum gain.<p>Now, as far as my specific assertions go. The 0.05 point is basic statistics which I feel no need to justify. The short-term point flows out of the former (there's simply more noise when you do all your sampling over a few days or minutes, say), and short-term studies are particularly vulnerable to issues like testing effects; the Balkans thing I alluded to in enough detail that you could easily have googled it if you were genuinely curious: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?num=100&#38;q=balkans%20IQ%20iodine%20deficiency%20study" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?num=100&#38;q=balkans%20IQ%20io...</a> And iodine deficiency isn't something that's purely long-term either - you can see effects after 24 weeks in this study: <a href="http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/83/1/108" rel="nofollow">http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/83/1/108</a> (note the high significance).<p>The burden of proof is not on those who claim lack of malleability - not that there are any such people here - but on those who claim IQ boosts without good long-term IQ testing.