30 years ago, avian researchers began to study the avian brain with Alex a very young African Grey parrot.
Just recently Alex's advanced language and recognition skills shattered sciences understanding of the avian brain.
The parrot learned enough english to identify 50 different objects, seven colors and five shapes.
Alex learned to count quantities up to six including zero and was able to articulate certain desires.
He even expressed frustration with repetitive scientific trials.
Alex's emotional development was that of a 2-year-old human child.
And he had the intelligence of a typical 5-year old child.
He could communicate with phrases, "I want water" and "Wanna go back" (return to his cage).
Alex also worked with 2 other parrots, Griffin and Arthur.
When Griffin or Arthur would mumble their words during lab work, Alex would tell them to "talk better".
It was not clear whether Alex was correcting his associates (Griffin and Arthur) or just mimicking what the researches said.
In 2007 Alex was demonstrating the ability to take distinct sounds from words he knew and combine them to form new words.
Unfortunately the study with Alex came to a halt when he passed away last September 2007.
Arthur who is eight years old and Griffin who is twelve years old, still remain in the lab and continue to be studied by researchers.
More recently, researchers had used what they had learned about how Alex's brain developed to test new ways of helping disabled children to communicate.
Alex was extraordinary in breaking the perception that birds were not intelligent.
Now we can say that birds are very intelligent beings.