Mathematical Parrot Reveals His Genius With Posthumous Paper

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Mathematical Parrot Reveals His Genius With Posthumous Paper

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @08:25AM from the math-is-for-the-birds dept.

ananyo writes "Even in death, the world's most accomplished parrot continues to amaze. The final experiments involving Alex – a grey parrot trained to count objects – have just been published (abstract). They show that Alex could accurately add together Arabic numerals to a sum of eight, and correctly add three small sets of objects, putting his mathematical abilities on par with (and maybe beyond) those of chimpanzees and other non-human primates."

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Alex is Dead? by dutchwhizzman · 2012-02-21 08:28 · Score: 5, Funny

Why wasn't that on Slashdot?

--
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
1. Re:Alex is Dead? by kanweg · 2012-02-21 08:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Because some people on Slashdot don't like parroted stories. I see complaints about that frequently.
  Bert
2. Re:Alex is Dead? by sideslash · 2012-02-21 08:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  'E's just resting, you know.
3. Re:Alex is Dead? by rossdee · 2012-02-21 08:36 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  pining for the fiords
4. Re:Alex is Dead? by KatchooNJ · 2012-02-21 08:44 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It's an X parrot! "What does X equal, Alex?"
  
  --
  "Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Re:Sea animals? by dietdew7 · 2012-02-21 08:35 · Score: 5, Funny

They (octopuses sic) have trouble with base 10, they're pretty good with octal.
Alex also solved the Goldbach conjecture by goffster · 2012-02-21 08:50 · Score: 3, Funny

but only up to 8.
Re:Mathematical Parrot Reveals His Genius With Pos by jeepien · 2012-02-21 09:05 · Score: 4, Funny

It also looks like your English teacher Hated and was Afraid of English, and Past that Hate to you.
Re:implication for dinosaurs by sexconker · 2012-02-21 09:10 · Score: 4, Funny

With time, the dinosaurs might have evolved to create civilization.
They actually had an advanced civilization but it collapsed. When the time came to actually DO something about the massive rock heading for the planet, they built a trajectory altering rocket that would land on the asteroid, dig itself in, and then fire its engines to steer the asteroid the necessary fraction of a degree away to save the planet.
Unfortunately they used touch screens for everything (instead of keyboards and mice) to cater to the T-Rex crowd with their short arms. When it was time to launch, they futilely pawed at their dPads but they just couldn't get any actual work done.