# Key Insights from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussions

• Researchers discussed cases where individuals with hydrocephalus and microcephaly maintained normal cognitive function despite having as little as 5% of normal brain volume, challenging conventional understanding of brain-function relationships and suggesting alternative mechanisms for neural processing.

• Alternative memory storage mechanisms in the brain were explored, including the hypothesis that very long-term memories might be stored in the pattern of holes in the perineuronal net rather than solely in synapses.

• Brain morphology discussions revealed that manatees have unusually thick cortices (4mm vs human 2.5mm) despite smooth brains, with researchers sharing models demonstrating how cortical thickness affects folding patterns across species.

• Open hardware initiatives were highlighted, including LowRISC's work toward fully open computing ecosystems and Neo900's privacy-focused open smartphone project, alongside DIY scientific instrumentation like a LEGO interferometer.

• Participants debated the security of RSA encryption, suggesting that well-funded adversaries can likely break 1024-bit RSA but might use this capability selectively due to computational expense.

• The discussion touched on philosophy of science, particularly Karl Popper's falsificationism and Imre Lakatos' refinements, noting how the concept of null hypothesis is often misunderstood in scientific research.

• Technical discussions included the complementary strengths of programming languages (Erlang for supervision trees and parallel processing; Python for string manipulation and number crunching) and spatial analysis tools like Turf.js for GIS functionality.