What would the world be like if that asteroid of 65 million years ago had missed? Here's one possible scenario. Nothing like a little alternative paleontology for a Friday morning, right? Feel free to make whatever dinosaur jokes you can't help but make in the comments. Link via Ezra.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on March 16, 2007 to Technology, science, and mathBirds are the last genetic link to dinosaurs.
They have evolved:
from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm
Parrot's oratory stuns scientists
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.
The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.
snip
About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.
Polished wordsmith
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.
snip
One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.
When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."
Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".
snip
Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge's School of Veterinary Medicine, said: "The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots."
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By some estimates, anywhere between 20% - 40% of all birds are already gone because of climate change. We cannot let science denying Republicans define the science of climate crisis and get it so wrong, that we are all undone, extinct--bees, bears, birds and us.
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Posted by: Support Science to Reverse Global Warming, which Al Gore says is still possible on March 16, 2007 4:31 PMI thought I should make clearer the meaning of the following:
...so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.
The meaning is that the parrot N'kisi is being taught the alphabet via flash cards in order to teach him to read.
Teaching A Bird To Read...the Descendant of Dinosaurs Being Taught to Read. Now, That Is Evolution! Too Amazing to Let It All Go.
Posted by: Support Science to Reverse Global Warming, which Al Gore says is still possible on March 16, 2007 5:52 PM