Article: BIRD BRAIN MEET ALEX, JUST MAYBE THE SMARTEST BIRD ON THE PLANET. AND ONE WITH A STAR COMPLEX, TOO.

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 ...

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