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Mathematical Parrot Reveals His Genius With Posthumous Paper

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."

6 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Alex is Dead? by dutchwhizzman · · 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 · · 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 · · Score: 5, Funny

      'E's just resting, you know.

    3. Re:Alex is Dead? by KatchooNJ · · 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 ^_^
  2. Re:Sea animals? by dietdew7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They (octopuses sic) have trouble with base 10, they're pretty good with octal.

  3. From the title I thought Alex WROTE the paper! by wisebabo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That would've been even more impressive than his math abilities.