Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 5 Nov 2012 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100412/0115008966/dailydirt-talking-animals-are-real.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100412/0115008966/dailydirt-talking-animals-are-real.shtml

An Asian elephant named Koshik can say five Korean words -- "annyong" ("hello"), "anja" ("sit down"), "aniya" ("no"), "nuo" ("lie down") and "choah" ("good"). This 22-year-old male elephant was born in captivity, and this may be the first time researchers have heard an elephant use its trunk to modify its vocalizations. [url]

Some dog owners have trained their dogs to speak short English words and phrases. In a few more (hundred) generations of human-directed breeding, maybe we'll have dogs that are fluent in human languages. [url]

Hoover the seal was famous for being the first non-human mammal to speak recognizable English words. He lived at the New England Aquarium and spoke with a thick Bostonian accent.... [url]

Beluga whales are sometimes referred to as "sea canaries" because they're so vocal, but now there's recorded evidence that at least one of these creatures can mimic human speech. A beluga whale in captivity didn't actually say anything recognizable, but it made sounds in an audible range of normal human speech -- which is much lower than usual whale noises. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100412/0115008966 Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110222/11135513210/dailydirt-natural-all-organic-intelligence-birds.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110222/11135513210/dailydirt-natural-all-organic-intelligence-birds.shtml

Alex the parrot was often described to be as smart as a 5-year-old kid. Time to clone some parrots and create an army of birds. How many birds as smart as a 5yo could you take in a fight? [url]

Maybe your 401K would do better under the management of a parrot -- a parrot named Strawberry outperformed 8 out of 10 human investors. Random stock picks would probably also do better than most humans, though. [url]

Some crows can actually make tools -- bending wires to form hooks in order to retrieve food. Who says a brain the size of a walnut isn't impressive? [url]

To discover more fascinating wildlife, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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