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Article: BIRD BRAIN MEET ALEX, JUST MAYBE THE SMARTEST BIRD ON THE PLANET. AND ONE WITH A STAR COMPLEX, TOO.
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- February 20, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2005 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Call him Alex - just Alex. This celebrity goes by one name.
Personal assistants swirl around his perch, offering him water, a
massage, a toy. He eats only vegan food, of course, breakfasting on
broccoli cooked for him by his personal chef. Japanese film crews
want to shoot him. Visiting scholars want to watch him at work. Alex
the parrot lives in a room at Brandeis University's Foster Biomedical
Research Lab, where a team of grad students, a.k.a. "parrot slaves,"
caters to his every whim.
It's not his looks that got him here: An African gray, Alex is
covered in feathers the color of a sweatsuit. Rather, Alex has made
it as far as a parrot can go in academia by proving himself to be ...