Irene Pepperberg's brainy parrot

Funny — The current issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology has a funny article (#8 down the list) by Irene Pepperberge and Jesse Gordon on a brainy parrot called Alex. In a series of experiments, the bird demonstrated knowledge of absence of quantity, using "none" to designate zero.

This is quite peculiar in itself: As highlighted in World Science, zero is not exactly the most trivial thing to master. The researchers are continuing their research to see if the parrot really masters the concept.