Slashdot Mirror
Alex the African Grey Parrot Dies
grrlscientist writes "Yesterday, I received the devastating news that Alex the African Grey parrot, who was both a study subject and colleague to Irene Pepperberg, died unexpectedly at 31 years of age. 'Even though Alex was a research animal, he was much more than that. This species of parrot generally lives to be 50-60 years old, so Alex was only middle-aged when he died. According to some reports I have read, it is possible that Alex might have succumbed to Aspergillosis, a fungal infection of the lungs that he has battled in the past. However, the cause of death will not be known until after a necropsy has been completed... Alex's veterinarian is returning from vacation to personally conduct this necrospy.'"
Anyone who makes a comment about pining for the fjords gets a slap.
Ok... *still trying to figure out how this is newsworthy* I know, I know.. I'm new here...
Wonder if anyone has checked for a nail?
He was just middle aged, I smell something wrong here. I suggest a full investigation into the causes of his untimely demise... Slow news day, huh?
in other news, 300 Chinese people died from a coal mine explosion.
Blame Canada!
And have they tried putting 50,000 volts through it?
I wonder if anyone has tried to sell him to a blind kid...
je suis parce que j'aime
...has gone to the birds.
"This is America... where the will of the few outweigh the outrage of the many..." - Unknown
I don't know, the Chinese government says they're sleeping.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
It is quite newsworthy, though. This parrot had particularly beautiful plumage.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
albeit probably unintentionally: As you know, I have spent my life researching, breeding and living with birds,
This coming from someone who calls themselves grrrlscientist. You could probably make some videos to pay for your research.....
Monstar L
I met him once. He really was a remarkable bird and could use language for communication, not just mimicry. He would answer all sorts of question about objects that you showed him. Some errors, of course, but correct responses way above chance. Together with all the reports over the last few years about tool-making and using in crows, it makes you have a lot more respect for birds. Makes me think of watching crows play and tumble on a strong, turbulent wind or pelican "surf" the air just in front of a nice clean wave. Awesome.
Although this animal could do some fairly impressive things, I often felt she (Dr. Pepperberg) and her colleagues made too much of it. The constellation of things referred to by English speakers as "Language" is far too broad to be especially meaningful when applied to the behavior of a parrot. The behaviors of "speaking" and "listening" are better described as falling along a continuum as opposed to a skill that one either has or not.
And this is fairly important news because, from what I understand, most Alex's success has not been replicated with other birds. Hopefully this will prompt her and/or others to better describe the conditions under which animals (and humans) come to do things we refer to as language as opposed to simply cataloging differences between species which are all too easy to find.
Dead Parrot Sketch
The cast:
MR. PRALINE
John Cleese
SHOP OWNER
Michael Palin
The sketch:
A customer enters a pet shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you
show...
(owner hits the cage)
Owner: There, he moved!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour
ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's b
nt
Can you explain to me why this story isn't newsworthy? It's not like this was just someone's personal parrot. This was a very important and rather famous research animal. I've seen him on more than one TV show. I think I've seen him on the evening news once. I know he was a segment on an episode of Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2H6DSoqZz_s
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
Luckily for me, Alex died young - I don't know if I could have held out for another 19-29 years...
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
this parrot was smarter and more intelligent than a certain percentage of /.ers. this is that kind of news.
no really, he was really, really overly smart. major geek stuff.
Read radical news here
Moron.
This is newsworthy to any science geek worth his/her salt. The fact that you think it isn't says more about your own sad lack of understanding than anything else.
Slashdot isn't all about P2P, wifi and linux you know. Perhaps you shouldn't be just about those things either. It may make you a better person in the long run.
Me an Me shipmates extend to ye oer sympathies. Tis tuf to looz a parrot, I wuldnt be da same witout mine. Arrrrrggghhhh.
May he rest in Davy Jones Locker in peace. Arrrgghhhh!!!!!
load "$",8,1
For me, the sign of the decline of Slashdot isn't that they are posting articles on the death of Alex. It's that the readership thinks only articles about iPhones, CPUs and videogames are "news for nerds."
The owner instead of training the parrot to be a dumb pet treated the bird using common approaches for children (especially ones with learning disabilities) with an amazing result. The parrot could talk and reason up to a level of roughly 3-3.5 year old.
I have seen the bird on a BBC documentary (PBS originally) and if this is the same bird I remember that was totally nuts. I could not believe what I see and what I hear. It was surreal.
This is news. Sad unfortunately.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Three, two, one.....
Bert
He was delicious!
I met Alex four years ago at Brandeis. He tried to mate with my arm... :(
The death of Alex the African Grey Parrot hit me harder than when Data died in the last Star Trek movie. This is truely a horrible day for Bird lovers everywhere. I guess I'll just go buy myself a gerbal to help fill the void. These are not smiles times.
WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
Actually I've heared the parrot was killed by Schrödinger's cat.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
However in this thread they are easily recognizable. Mostly it's a lot harder to tell who is talking shit en pick out the few comments that have any value.
I agree. I'd say 1/3 of headlines I see on Slashdot are flamebait or fluff, and 1/2 of those come from kdawson. Just now I went into my preferences pages and removed kdawson but then after a few minutes I undid it. Why?
Because I don't want to miss the 1/3 of stories that he posts that are worth reading. I am worried about missing something, because even though kdawson is the worst editor slashdot has ever had (although it's a close race with zonk), every once in a while even he/she/it posts something worthwhile.
Is there some way to filter just the ridiculously lame stories that kdawson posts? Is there a slashdot tag that is something like "kdawson-at-it-again" or something, so I can filter just the 50% of crap out?
I think what you are proposing is called a "false dilemma". The assertion is that this news story is garbage that shouldn't have made it to slashdot headlines (which I agree with; I mean if you really cared about this story you'd already be subscribed to alt.fan.parrots or maybe alt.pet.obituaries and wouldn't need slashdot to tell you about this). You are suggesting that the only way for one to see this story as worthless is if you have too narrow a focus and only care about iPhones, CPUs, and videogames. And yet there is a third option, that is in fact the correct one:
The majority of slashdot readers think iPhones, CPUs, and videogames are very geek-newsworthy, but also have lots of other interests and appreciate a wide variety of stories about science & technology subjects. Most of them, I am guessing, don't give a shit about one particular researcher's one particular pet subject having died. Doesn't make their interests narrow.
Obviously, what is and isn't interesting news is highly subjective. But I'll bet if you took a poll, most people would put this in the "roll your eyes and move on" category. Hell I only read the comments of this article to see how many people flamed kdawson (deservedly so) for posting it. I was surprised to find people defending him but I guess I shouldn't have been. There is always a contrary position out there somewhere.
I think it's telling that this story was posted by kdawson. Do you think that one of the more respected editors would have pushed this crap out?
A dead parrot?
If GWB died, and TV brought a special feature about it, you'd probably complain about that too, because just that someone dies doesn't justify a special feature. After all, how many people die every day?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
A Parrot is a bird, a Penguin is a bird, the mascot of Linux is Tux the Penguin. See? Totally relevant.
If you did any reading of the article or the other posts on this thread, you'd know that this was significant to people interested in cognitive development, non-human cognition, and linguistics - very nerdly topics, if you get past the lack of iPhones and such. But no, you decided to go ad hominem.
There was a book about Alex, called "The Alex Papers," describing the research, and the relationship between the researcher and Alex. It may have some flaws, but it is still important work.
You may be right about that poll, though. That's what I describe as a "decline." The term "idiocracy" comes to mind.
No, the parrot may or may not have been killed by Schrödinger's cat, who may or may not be dead.
My blog
after reading the news that the Mac community prevented the coup, and now you are bringing me down with a news that whatever parrot died. reading the slashdot is becoming a roller-coaster ride.
The reason it's on Slashdot is that when I looked at the headline I said out loud, "Oh damn", because I actually heard of the bird (admittedly from a previous Slashdot posting, but one of unquestionable interest) and was moved by its death. It's about as relevant as a space probe dying, if not more.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
My local pet store has a parrot that was born in 1914. He seems healthy and spry (and he bites).
obHomer: Mmmmmm.... peppered bird...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
That sums up the article for ya, right there. Famous bird, written up in New York Times. A tragedy, dead. Give me some money...
Paris Hilton? That's not a tragedy. I'll keep my money.
Stick Men
If that doesn't make his death "News for Nerds", then I don't know what does.
Initially I read Nerds as Birds... which would make for an interesting headline:
News for Birds, stuff with crackers
If it were a robotic parrot, maybe people would care more. Unfortunately, most people on here only acknowledge the "Computer Nerd" variety of nerdome, overlooking veterinary, medical, science, and many other forms of nerddome.
I must admit, at first I was wondering why an article about a parrot was on the front-page of slashdot. I'm a regular, but apparently I haven't caught Alex on the news on slashdot before. However, the article was enough to pique my interest and look up a bit more of Alex... although I do have a personal interest in African Grey's (always wanted one as a pet, but they're a lot of money, and require more attention than I could give right now). They're supposed to be incredibly intelligent birds, with live spans that often mean that need to be included in the owner's will (because they've been known to outlive humans).
I do wonder that, if Alex had been a famous Chimpanzee or primate, then perhaps more people would find interest in this article. Just because he's a bird and not a mammal such as a monkey or dolphin, doesn't mean that his intelligence isn't noteworthy or perhaps of scientific value. Heck, if you pay close attention to even some more common birds such as crows (or better, ravens) you'll find that they show rather keen level of intelligence and shrewdness. This is generally centered around getting food, but just because their needs/desires are much simpler than ours doesn't mean that their intellect is.
It's not a duplicate. It's something other than the usual "someone got agitated over a misunderstanding on a *BSD/Linux mailing list and we misinterpreted it even further for you". It is news from one of the "soft" sciences that are nice to read for a change now and then.
I'd actually like to nominate this a one of kdawsons best use of editorial control for a long while.
Noam Chomsky criticised the parrot's ability to speak saying it was just operant conditioning, but I'd say that's about as much as most slashbots have.
I can see it now: "In Soviet Russa... In Soviet Russia *SQUAWK* I FOR ONE WELCOME *SQUAWK*"
Isn't Apergillis how the folks in the movie Primer discovered what their device did?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
I have a Meyers Parrot named Brady (picture: http://flickr.com/photos/mark_watson/392128570/) who is about 6 years old. When Brady was a baby, I used to show him videos on my computer, not of Alex, but of the Parrot at MIT who used a symbolic language. Brady was fairly much fascinated by the videos, and I showed them to him many times.
:-)
Although parrots have small neocortexes, they are clever little creatures. Brady has good analytic (puzzle solving) abilities, but his long term memory seems to be limited to things that he has been exposed to many times - this is just my own opinion, not backed up by any scientific research.
I work at home and can frequently give our parrot attention during the day - please don't even consider getting a parrot unless either your family can give it frequent attention and play time every day, or get a mated pair that can keep each other company. We find that we can't really leave rady in a room by himself, so we move him to where ever we are in the house, or better yet, just let him run/fly around (also known as running amuck
A problem with parrots is that they do bite - I get a good bite every month or two, but I try to not let it hurt my feelings. I could probably avoid most bites by not handling Brady when I know that he is pissed off, but why bother.
Agree,
This is science people! I personally studied this stuff in the few psych courses I took at University. Very important in regards to animal learning and cognition.
God, Slashdot is getting boring. Hey, let's talk about WOW again!
I ate what? Well, how would I know it was a talking parrot?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Check out Frostee who can dance to Creedance Clearwater song. Now, that's neat to see him go down and boogey. :D
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It's not like the histories of artificial intelligence and cognitive science as fields of study are inextricably linked. We haven't been going back and forth between models of thinking based on computer programming and models based on human or animal behavior, building from one to the other, for over fifty years now. If it's not about particle physics, space travel, or the new iPod, a true nerd would know nothing about it.
No, Alex the parrot and Irene Pepperberg have NO PLACE on a nerdly site like slashdot.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I still remember the bit on 3-2-1 Contact where they featured Alex.
The coolest bit was that he invented a word for an apple (banerry)
based on its similarities in color and taste to fruits he knew.
Were that I say, pancakes?
I don't have modpoints and you're at +5 already, so let me instead say: BRAVO. Well said.
This sort of quirky, hard-to-categorise but somehow "of geeky interest" story is what brought me here. Sadly, in recent years, such stories have come along every few months, buried under a flood of flamebait RIAA/MS are evil / fanbait Google/Apple are glorious tripe, which are clearly just trolling for maximum ad impressions. And when they DO come along, someone pops up and complains they're not related to Halo 3 or whatever idiotic computer game is flavour of the month at the moment, and therefore not news for nerds.
What breed of dog is Fido? He wouldn't happen to be a lab, would he?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
My African Grey recently died too at an early age, 15, she was an amazing intelligent bird. We had a necropsy done and it turned out to be a heart attack / hear disease. Big bummer, I really dug Alex, very extraordinary bird.
Can you please point out the ad hominem attack in my post? As far as I know I didn't attack you personally at any time.
The other guy said it best - this story is not interesting because it's not about the research or about cognitive science or anything useful at all. It's about a parrot dying. It's very tangentially related to an interesting subject, and you'd have to be pretty damn interested in the particular research of one particular researcher to even care about this. I'm not saying that there isn't *somebody* out there who cares that this parrot died. I'm just saying that it doesn't even come close to the threshold of being interesting to enough people to be worth posting on Slashdot.
Perhaps Slashdot should post a news article every time a cognitive science department at a university gets a new grant? It's probably more practically useful knowledge for the people who would be interested in this dead parrot, although no more interesting for the rest of us.
...he's pining for the fjords!
Do you remember Koko, the signing chimpanzee? Or Sitka, the first dog that was shot into space? These animals were symbolically important in scientific history. The case of Alex is particularly important, because it suggests that it is interaction (that is, the close relationship between learner and teacher) that is as important as innate capability in structuring cognitive function. Research like this is hard to repeat, since it involves actually creating a long-term relationship, including an emotional one, with your research subject. (Imagine trying to raise a child you didn't care about - it's the same problem.)
The ad hominem isn't against me. It's what I see as your campaign against kdawson, which is what motivated your remark to begin with. I don't really notice who-edits-what - I'm not really a Slashdot trainspotter - but you assumed that since he posted it, it must not have been of value or interest. You were wrong.
And the "practically useful knowledge" remark reinforces my observation about iPhones, CPUs and videogames.
Correction, by the way: Laika was the dog shot into space.
Do you think it wouldn't be "news for nerds" to report the death of Laika?
I don't think the death of those other animals you spoke about would be particularly slashdot-worthy either. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on these points.
Yes you are right, I did attack kdawson, the guy/gal annoys me terribly. I went so far as to write an email to CmdrTaco complaining about kdawson's editorial quality, I find it that bad.
I got the news from another member of my bird club who knew that Dr. Irene Pepperberg did a demonstration with myself and my Grey for our club a few years ago.
Irene's research was instrumental in helping understand the cognitive ability of animals (ironicly, her research started out as trying to help brain damaged humans rebuild cognitive ability through Model/Rival training).
Irene has a big heart and I know she must be crushed from this loss.
If you want to support her research with her 3 other birds (lab space and research assistants aren't free), please donate a check made payable to:
The Alex Foundation MS/062
Department of Psychology
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02454
Attn: Alex Memorial
The Alex Foundation is a 503c not-for-profit organization.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Not really an ad hominem. More like a question of semantics, really: people who are only interested in consumer commodities rather than anything theoretical, scientific or philosophical, I'd call idiots a priori. But it's just not about my interests, either: I don't have much interest in theoretical physics, but I would still consider articles about physics news-for-nerds and stuff-that-matters, and I would read them to stay abreast.
The interesting research part was in TFA.
Did they even selectively breed him with other parrots?
Not really, unless there were special circumstances like long-term effects from the space travel. Laika was just a random dog that happened to be put on a rocket. Likewise, I don't care about the death of Dolly the sheep, but I might care about the death of her clone, again, for genetics related reasons. Alex, on the other hand, was an active participant. He matters, by my reckoning.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
OK-
So it's a dead parrot.
But does Mr.Wensleydale still have no cheese?
.
- aqk
F U
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
The fact that this article is in no way furthering the scientific area of which the parrot is famous for contributing to, nor is it broadening the general knowledge of the community by offering information to those previously unnaware, are the issues I take with this posting on Slashdot. Nothing else. Not a narrow appreciation of the field, not a closed view of the definition of the word Nerd or the misunderstanding of the nature of the slashdot community.
:Reference link to important effects brought about by the study of this particular parrot. :Information of how the study or interaction of this parrot was significantly different than others of its kind. :The inclusion of the effects that the loss of this specimin will have on the future of that study.
Just the simple fact that there is no news other than a death. An obituary. On slashdot. Nothing deeper in the link than a breif description of the parrots media appearances and a short list of abilities:
"As early as 1999, he was able to "identify 50 different objects and understand quantities up to 6; he could distinguish 7 colors and 5 shapes, and understand the concepts of 'bigger', 'smaller', 'same', and 'different', and he was learning 'over' and 'under'," according to the New York Times. By 2002, Alex had a vocabulary of more than 100 words."
Notwithstanding that this was an accomplishment in and of itself for a parrot, it is not news that a parrot died. They die. And if there was an effect on the people in this field, they would have known about it through the more specialized sites and news outlets that they subscribe to since the actual death is a highly significant event to these people.
It is not however the acceptable news article for a site that claims as it's tagline: "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters"
Since this is a forum that basically discusses the news articles as they are posted, there is not too much news to discuss here since it is an obit. Nothing more. A single event of the passing of life from a being. The requirements that it fails to meet in my opinion would have been:
Any one of which would have lead to a significantly greater number of people currently posting being more accepting of this article appearing on slashdot. Since this would make it "Matter" to them much more. It is not the greatest qualification for a story on slashdot that you have "...seen him on the evening news once". These obits in the past have been reserved for either much better documented stories about the deceased or much greater general awareness by the readers of slashdot than this. I think you'll see that the tags and general posts support the idea that the death is simply not enough to qualify by itself in this case.
This was, for me at least, the assumption of story submittals being rejected in favor of better documented, linked or referenced submissions. This is now also the expectation that I will waive for kdawson and just skip the stories that this editor posts if this trend continues.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Well done.
I have almost given up my Slashdot addiction, precisely because of this problem. The one article I bother reading every couple of times I visit this site once every week or so, always seems to be filled with responses to people asking why this is news. Would that there were a decent replacement. (Technocrat's okay, but doesn't have enough discussion and tends to have articles that are too political or too repetitive — one global warming article a year is enough.)
Look out!
Q. What's this ? "Pieces of Seven! Pieces of Seven!"
A. A parity error.
These creatures were meant to fly free in their native rain forests, not to languish in cages, regardless of your anthropomorphizing. I've been working in East Africa for the past several years and have seen first hand the results of the horrible practices of raiding the last few intact habitats for the pet trade. Everything is for sale, from exotic fresh water fish, to birds, rare butterflies, pretty much anything and everything. This trade contributes and hastens the destruction of these habitats forever.
In Kenya I used to marvel at the diversity of exotic birds that congregated in my garden, from the majestic eagles and kites, to the brightly coloured sunbirds, the odd Ibis or Kingfisher.
Then I had an idiot neighbor that had some kind of parrot locked up in a cage that would squauk all day, poor bastard. Parrots in Kenya are becoming rarer and rarer...all because some people on the other side of the world think its cool to "own" one.
I got the opportunity to hold and play with this bird a few years ago. He had an equivalent IQ to a 3-year-old child and was able to identify (and speak the name of) a number of different objects presented to him.
He also did this strange dance for me whenever I had a piece of fruit in my hand.
But he was a remarkable creature, so it's definitely a sad bit of news for the University of Arizona dept of biology.
/* No Comment */
I feel very sorry for the owner of Alex. He was a very special parrot. I have a parrot named Poncho and he is about 32 years old and hearing the news made take a little more peticular care of him. I once wrote a paper on my talking parrot and included the research of Alex that he could form syntex. I did this for my linguistic class the the professor was quite surprised. It got me a better grade and I passed the difficult class. I owe it to the information on Alex, the intelligent parrot. although I think my parrot understands what he is telling me. I am very sorry to hear this news.