Dallas oil, wind and water billionaire T. Boone Pickens, it seems, is everywhere.

There he is in Forbes magazine, allowing a reporter to accompany him as he receives a brain scan. Result: Boone just turned 80, but “his brain age is more like 55.”

Pity the child with the silver spoon. No matter what he accomplishes in life, it won’t measure up to the achievements of mom and dad.

Nonprofits, no matter how serious their mission, understand that famous names attract money, connections and high attendance at organization events.

Microsoft’s employee No. 105 will soon become the No. 1 employee at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest foundation in the world.

Noting that as he gets older, he gets more tolerant, the once anti-religious Ted Turner has joined two religious organizations to reduce malaria in Africa.

Cosmetics magnate Leonard A. Lauder has made the biggest gift the Whitney Museum has ever received.

Little-known philanthropist Chuck Feeney has patterned his life on an Irish proverb: “There are no pockets in a shroud.”

As Margot Roosevelt of the Los Angeles Times reported in a rare profile yesterday, Feeney plans to give away $8 billion in the next 8 years.

Feeney, co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, which was bought by Bernard Arnault in 1997, put most of his fortune into Atlantic Philanthropies eight years ago. He gave the foundation leadership an usual mission: Spend every dollar by 2016.

James H. Simons keeps putting his money where his mind is.

The billionaire former mathematics professor and his wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, have given $60 million to Stony Brook University.

Brad Pitt is unlikely to quit his day job, especially with a houseful of Jolie-Pitt munchkins. And judging from the picture of partner Angelina’s much talked about “bump” during this past weekend’s Independent Spirit Awards, child number five may be on the way.

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell has learned that even generosity can need an explanation.

Cornwell gave $1 million donation to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City this month.

But worried that some of her remarks about the gift might be read as demeaning police officers, Cornwell last week spent $250,000 to set the record straight.