Talk better

This is so sweet and sad it makes me a little teary.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/12/parrot.obit.ap/index.html

Alex, a parrot...has died after 30 years of helping researchers better understand the avian brain.

Alex's advanced language and recognition skills revolutionized the understanding of the avian brain... [T]he parrot learned enough English to identify 50 objects, seven colors and five shapes. He could count up to six, including zero, was able to express desires, including his frustration with the repetitive research.

He also occasionally instructed two other parrots at the lab to "talk better" if they mumbled, though it wasn't clear whether he was simply mimicking researchers.

Alex...was demonstrating the ability to take distinct sounds from words he knew and combine them to form new words... Just last month, he pronounced the word "seven" for the first time.

The last time Pepperberg saw Alex was Thursday, she said. They went through their back-and-forth goodnight routine...and...she told him it was time to go in the cage.

She recalls the bird said: "You be good. I love you." She responded, "I love you, too." The bird said, "You'll be in tomorrow," and she responded, "Yes, I'll be in tomorrow."