I tried to tease out the "meat" of the article excluding the filler as follows. It's mostly the same old cliches - nothing new.

* What makes a genius? We don't know the answer, but science offers some clues. There isn't likely to be a single factor, since genius is too elusive a concept. But intelligence, creativity, perseverance, and good fortune may be a few factors that contribute to it.

* Intelligence is often considered a crucial factor. Lewis Terman at the Stanford University tracked the careers of a 1500 high IQ school kids. Many of them did turn out to be successes. But IQ in itself was not a guarantee - some high IQ people struggled to thrive, whereas others who didn't make the cut went on to win Nobel prizes.

* Creativity: the aha moment often emerges after a period of contemplation. Information comes in consciously, but the problem is processed unconsciously, the resulting solution leaping out when the mind least expects it. The creative process relies on the interplay of... different parts of the brain at once—both the right and left hemispheres and especially regions in the prefrontal cortex.

* Jazz musicians' brain scans during improvising: the internal network, associated with self-expression, showed increased activity, while the outer network, linked to focused attention and also self-censoring, quieted down. “It’s almost as if the brain turned off its own ability to criticize itself".

* One sign of creativity is being able to make connections between seemingly disparate concepts. Richer communication between areas of the brain may help make those intuitive leaps possible.

* As per an ongoing study, in creative people's brains: “...there’s more communication going on between the left and the right hemispheres, which one might expect in people who are highly creative”. “There’s more flexibility in their thought processes, more contributions from different parts of the brain.”

* Genetic potential alone does not predict actual accomplishment. It also takes nurture to grow a genius. Social and cultural influences can provide that nourishment, creating clusters of genius at moments and places in history: Baghdad during Islam’s Golden Age, Kolkata during the Bengal Renaissance, Silicon Valley today.

* “grit”—drives people to achieve. Duckworth, ...says the concept of genius is too easily cloaked in layers of magic, as if great achievement erupts spontaneously with no hard work. She believes there are differences when it comes to individual talent, but no matter how brilliant a person, fortitude and discipline are critical to success. “When you really look at somebody who accomplishes something great,” she says, “it is not effortless.”

* Prodigious productivity is a defining characteristic of genius. “Most articles published in the sciences are never cited by anybody,” says Simonton. “Most compositions are not recorded. Most works of art aren’t displayed.” Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and the first commercially viable light bulb, but these were just two of the thousand-plus U.S. patents he was awarded.

* Biological traits: “In the same way that Mozart may have had extraordinary hearing,” says Ausubel, “Leonardo appears to have had extraordinary visual acuity.”