The developing brain is highly plastic in humans. The downside of this is that the developing human is, compared to other species, practically helpless and without any skills required for survival for the first years of his/her life. Other species with multitude of innate abilities are able to function in their environment mere minutes or hours after birth. The advantage given by the high degree of brain plasticity is that humans are able to adapt to a far greater range of different environments than most of the other species. For instance, it is possible to learn any of the rather diverse languages and cultures of the world that one is born into, and learn diverse skills, from hunting to computer programming.