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The Dog Nose Knows
Scientists look to real canines to develop an electronic land mine sniffer.
Select text to jump ahead in the clip:
As the women's basketball
squad scrimmages
at Auburn University in
Alabama
no one seems to pay
much attention
to a lone figure placing
a harmless looking tube
under one of the seats.
But one person watching with
keen interest is Ed
Hawkinson.
An ex-Secret Service agent
he helped protect the
president
using dogs trained
to sniff out explosives.
Today he's watching
the performance
of a dog named Booger.
HAWKINSON:
This dog actually sniffs
about four times a second
which is pretty remarkable.
And he inhales odor
until he goes right
straight to the source
puts his nose on it
and then sits.
He's just pretty steady
sniffing right now.
ALDA:
Ed's skill is in training
dogs
to locate specific scents
they've learned to associate
with a reward.
HAWKINSON:
Now, see the change
in the behavior?
Now, what he did is tell her
it's somewhere in that area.
Now he's going to raise
his head up in a minute
and sit down.
Good boy.
HAWKINSON:
There's nothing more
beautiful
than watch a dog do this
and go right to the source
and then sit.
ALDA:
Booger's been rewarded this
time
for finding a harmless
chemical
but he's also been trained
to sniff out
far more dangerous things.
It's a polymer gun.
It's a real gun,
it has real bullets in it--
none in the chamber--
and what we do
is just teach the dog
to find the bouquet of odors
that are actually
coming off this gun.
ALDA:
Ed Hawkinson's new job
is to breed and train dogs
to help prevent tragedies
like
the shootings at Columbine
High.
Good boy! Good boy!
HAWKINSON:
We can't take care of
the psychological problem
that's causing all this
but maybe we can prevent
people
from, um, bringing guns
and bombs to school
because of the dogs
that we're going to have.
TRAINER:
Come on, puppies!
ALDA:
These Labrador puppies
are among Ed's first
recruits.
He favors Labs in part
because they're so appealing.
They're, uh, certainly
lovable animals
and they're not a threat
to anybody.
But they absolutely smell
great
as far as olfactory
capabilities.
They're a very calm dog
and we just love them
because of their temperament.
You take these in schools
and you have no problem
communicating with the
children
and the administrators
and all that.
There's not a threat.
Of course, this little girl
is the worst one.
Yeah, you're the star
of the show, huh.
ALDA:
Ed's puppies have months
of training ahead of them
before they become
as expert as Sadie
a black Lab who specializes
in detecting the explosive
TNT.
This contains 45 grams
of flaked TNT.
This is what Sadie is trained
to smell and then sit.
ALDA:
Each of the blocks in the
circle
auhas a jar in it.
The jars all contain a
chemical
but only in four
is the chemical TNT.
Watching her performance
are two visitors to Auburn
from Tufts University
in Massachusetts
John Kauer and Joel White.
John and Joel have taken
on the daunting task
of trying to emulate
Sadie's skills
with a device that looks
like a Rube Goldberg
variation
kon a vacuum cleaner.
Their goal is to use it
to locate some
of the deadliest objects
in the world:
unexploded land mines.
To show how hard
the task is now
John has buried a land mine
without its explosive
just below the surface
in his backyard.
My job is to find it, armed
only with this wooden stick.
The idea is to slide
it in obliquely
so that you don't
hit the fuse.
You don't want
to go down on it
because that's where
the fuse is.
You know, when I
was in the army
40 years ago
they taught me how to do that
with a bayonet
to crawl on the ground
and probe for it.
That was one of many things
they taught me in the army
that I didn't really
want to know.
ALDA:
I only have to search around
in one small spot
of freshly turned earth.
Is this enough of an angle,
do you think?
KAUER:
I think that's
the appropriate angle.
ALDA:
It's frustrating and scary.
KAUER:
So you can see
from doing this
how long it would take
to clear a square meter.
Yeah, I mean.. I mean,
obviously
somebody experienced at it
would go a lot faster
than I'm going
but you do have to make
many...
Well, I'm not sure
they would go a lot faster.
ALDA:
After several long minutes
of blindly probing...
Okay, there it is.
Got something?
Yeah, that's clearly it.
I'll tell you, I think I
would
have already blown myself up.
ALDA:
The only way to confirm
it's the mine
is to gently-- very gently--
clear away the dirt
with my fingers.
There it is.
Oh, my God,
>T>What a horrible sight.
That little bit
of green plastic in there.
What a disgusting sight that
is.
I mean, that's this...
That's the essence
of the problem
right there.
ALDA:
And the problem is immense.
It's estimated that there are
between 50 and 100 million
land mines buried in places
as far apart as Bosnia
Afghanistan and Cambodia.
Like the mine I searched for,
most of them are plastic
and so they're invisible
to metal detectors.
The only way to find them,
apart from probing
is to use dogs.
How effective are dogs
compared to probing?
Well, the dogs
are not perfect.
I mean, they don't
find every mine
that's out there.
And the problem probably
stems
from the fact
that the concentrations of
the
material you're trying to
detect
are extremely low.
These have very little odor
associated with them.
You and I won't
smell anything
and, uh, even if
we opened them
you wouldn't smell
the material.
Right.
ALDA:
So for several years now
working mostly
in John Kauer's garage
the two biologists have been
building an artificial nose
that they hope will one day
be even better than a dog's.
Now, if we do this right,
it won't start smoking
when I get all these hooked
up.
John and I are
neurophysiologists.
We're interested in
how the brain works.
And traditionally
neurophysiologists tend to be
people who like to
tinker with things.
You build electronic
circuits,
you program computers
you make your own hardware,
you build your amplifier.
And so it was kind of a
natural
that when the idea of
building
an artificial nose came up
that that was something
that would be attractive to
us.
This go
over my neck?
ALDA:
The artificial dog nose
consists
of a battery pack, a computer
and the device that actually
takes the sniffs.
You're the first person
not in the lab
who has
worn this thing.
I hope it doesn't blow up.
If blue smoke starts
coming out of it,
we'll run.
ALDA:
The tube first takes a sniff
at an empty jar.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
That wasn't me.
That was the machine's.
It has my voice.
Blank.
It sounds
very similar.
ALDA:
The next jar contains DNT,
a nonexplosive cousin of TNT.
Traces of DNT are often
present
in land mines.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Land mine.
Wow, it just tells you
in plain words: "Land mine."
WHITE:
Yeah, it doesn't mince
words at all, does it?
Okay, here we go
to the next one.
ALDA:
The last of the test jars
contains methanol
or wood alcohol.
And this'll say,
"Double malt scotch."
KAUER:
It could--
we've tested it on beer.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Methanol.
Wow! Pretty smart.
At least it can
discriminate
between Sam Adams
and Corona.
We know that.
We've done that experiment.
ALDA:
Here's what's been happening
each time the machine
took a sniff:
a valve at the business end
of the tube opens
drawing air into
the detection chamber
lined on one side
with tiny light-emitting
diodes
and on the other side
with sensors made of
different chemicals.
The molecules in the odor
react with these sensors
slightly changing the color
or brightness of some
while leaving others
unaffected.
The computer looks at the
total
pattern of response to each
odor
creating a characteristic
signature for each.
The device is based
on how the Tufts researchers
think real dog noses work
and like a real dog's nose,
the machine can be trained.
This is essential
if you're looking
for different mines buried
in different places
for different lengths of
time.
ALDA:
This mine buried
in Bosnia
would smell different
from the same mine
buried in Vietnam.
One might imagine
that to be true.
There are no data that I know
of
that have shown that
explicitly
but the experience from using
animals like dogs
is that you have to train
them
at the local environments.
Is the idea of training the
dog
or the device on the site
so that any chemical changes
that have taken place
since the mine was placed
there
that are peculiar to that
site
would be recognizable?
Exactly right.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
ALDA:
With the machine trained
to recognize DNT as a land
mine
it's time to put it
through its paces.
There you go.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
Except that so far it thinks
everything is blank.
ALDA:
And this jar, I happen
to know, contains DNT.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
It's getting adamant
about it, too.
Did you noticed
the tone changing?
ALDA:
Sadie, the black Labrador,
performed this test
flawlessly
and in a few seconds at
Auburn.
But just as John and Joel are
starting to sweat a little...
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Land mine.
Land mine here!
Now, I don't care whether
it's right or wrong.
I would definitely
take it seriously
if it said "land mine"
especially the way
it screams it out like that.
ALDA:
John has kept notes
on our performance
as we went around the ring.
So it's doing
pretty well.
So out of six
that we did so far
it's missed one.
It's missed one.
Yeah.
And it said it was blank
and it was really a land
mine.
That's the kind of error
you don't want.
But... but, uh,
but five out of six isn't
bad.
You can get a new machine
and probably another actor
in here pretty quickly.
ALDA:
Or another dog.
Trained animals like Odo,
a Belgian malinois
continue to be
the unsurpassed experts
at the task John White
has set himself
which is why he's come
to Auburn's Canine Olfactory
Detection Laboratory
to see Odo in action
in a test chamber.
WOMAN:
Odo stays in the chamber.
a session like this
about an hour every day
and gets approximately
45 to 50 trials per session.
He usually starts out
by hearing a beeping tone
and that tells him to stick
his nose in the nose cone
and the odor is dispensed.
ALDA:
Odo responds by pushing a
lever
and he's rewarded
with some kibble
if his response is correct.
If he sniffs only clean air,
he pushes the left lever.
If he smells an odor, he
presses
the lever on the right.
The strength of the odor
can be reduced
until Odo can no longer
tell the difference
between smell and no smell.
This gives the researchers
his threshold
for detecting that odor
which can be one
or two parts per billion.
Odo always seems shocked
when he's wrong.
We think that we're
about ten times worse
than the dog's
sensitivity right now.
And part of the reason
that we're visiting
is that we've made some
improvements in the device
that we hope
will get us closer
to what this animal
is doing.
But as I watch this--
in fact, I hadn't
seen this as carefully
as we're looking
at it now before--
it's clear that there
are a whole bunch
of other things
that the dog is doing
that our device
is not doing.
You can watch the dog
anticipate
and get ready
for the next trial.
(chuckles):
Well, our thing
just sits there
and although that
sounds trivial
I'm sure this is part
of the process
that allows the dog
to do it so well
because he's focusing
his attention
at a particular
period of time.
Now, part
of the issue, of course
in designing
a better device
is determining which
of those things
you'd like to replicate.
And I think
the lying down
and stopping work
is one of the things
we don't want to replicate.
(chuckling)
ALDA:
Joel and John have brought
their artificial nose to
Auburn
to run it head to head
with dogs like Odo
in a similar testing chamber.
The machine sniffs
precisely measured doses
of its test chemicals
which include the land mine
component dinitrotoluene,
DNT.
So this DNT
concentration
is somewhere between
ten and 20 parts
per billion.
We would like to be down
at about one part per
billion.
ALDA:
Today, the artificial nose
again
gets off to a rocky start.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
It missed that one.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Blank.
KAUER:
Missed that one, too.
It's missing DNT.
ALDA:
But after Joel
does some tweaking
the nose settles in for a run
almost as impressive as
Odo's.
MECHANICAL VOICE:
Dinitrotoluene.
(chuckles)
This is what keeps
you going in science, right?
This is what keeps
the juices flowing.
It's great fun.
What's the next one?
ALDA:
John and Joel's enthusiasm
mayet produce an artificial
nose
to rival or even better a
dog's
and help save thousands of
lives
from the millions of land
mines
still out there
waiting to explode.
Dogs, meanwhile, remain the
unexcelled sniffing champions
and not just because
of their noses.
According to John Kauer,
they live in a smellier
world.
KAUER:
There's a good reason
why the animal's noses
are down on the ground
is that odors tend to be
heavy--
they're heavier than air--
so they don't rise, they sink
and there's a very
rich odor environment
down near the ground.
I'm going to check out
what you said.
First I'm going to do
a little sniffing up here
at around six feet.
This is
the control.
(sniffing)
Okay.
Now I'm going to check it out
a little lower.
(sniffing)
Oh, my God, yeah.
ALDA:
It's true, down here the
world
is a far smellier place.
And every few inches
you get
a different aroma.
Virtual Dog Training
Alan tests his dog training skills, in the real world and in cyberspace.
Select text to jump ahead in the clip:
ALDA:
Once upon a time,
athere was a dog named Silas.
(Silas yips)
Hello, Silas.
ALDA:
Silas lived in
a so-called magic room
at MIT's famous Media Lab.
Where's he going?
Hey, (whistles) come here.
ALDA:
Although only a virtual dog,
he'd been trained
to respond to the gestures of
the people who entered his
life.
Sit, sit.
(barks)
Oh, wow, look at that.
He's like a real dog
that sometimes
he'll respond
to your gestures
and sometimes
he won't.
Will he beg?
Yeah.
Put both your hands
over your head.
Whoa!
Now, sometimes Silas
will do what he wants.
So right now
I think he's heading off
to get a ball
because he figures...
Here he is,
here he is.
Give me the ball,
give me the ball.
Okay, now I'll throw
the ball for him.
ALDA:
Several years, and several
thousands of lines
of computer code later,
Silas left his magic room
and grew up to become Duncan
a sheep dog with an entire
Scottish estate to roam
around
and a flock of virtual
and rather flighty sheep
to look after.
(sheep bleating)
Away.
ALDA:
Like Silas, Duncan
is the creation
of a Media Lab team
headed by Bruce Blumberg.
(Silas barks)
So "away"
tells the dog what?
"Away" tells him to circle
around the sheep
keeping the sheep
in his left eye.
In his left eye?
So he's going
to be circling
around the sheep
which is
an instinctive behavior
for herding animals--
for herding dogs.
"Bye" tells him to circle
keeping them
in his right eye
so that would be
clockwise around.
Bye... bye?
"Bye"-- these are all
Scottish terms.
Oh, I see.
I don't know why
the Scots came up with them
but we thought we'd have
a little tradition here.
Down.
ALDA:
And just like
their traditional
counterparts
all the creatures on the
screen
have minds of their own...
Away.
With Duncan's being
a good deal smarter
than the sheeps'.
When I tell him "away,"
for example
PC9he understands that
command
but then it's up
to his own intelligence
in order to figure out how
far
away from the sheep to go
how to avoid the obstacles
that he sees.
Very much as if you had a
puppy
and the puppy comes
with some basic abilities
and then you're training it
to use this action
to get particular...
Now,
he's got them
in kind of a lump
over there.
Yeah, that's good.
Maybe I shouldn't
do anything.
He's doing a great
job of herding
if I don't do anything.
Would you like to try it?
Yeah, sure.
All right,
what you need to do
is say
one of those words
and then
we'll click on it.
Away.
Bye.
ALDA:
This is the easy part--
getting virtual Duncan
to recognize my voice.
Now things get trickier.
ALDA:
Can I just decide
where I want
to herd them to--
it doesn't matter?
Yeah, there's no sort of
winning
and losing in this.
ALDA:
Away.
ALDA:
Things start off promisingly.
(sheep bleating)
Steady.
(Duncan barks)
I've lost a sheep here.
ALDA:
But then Duncan and I seem to
go
our different ways.
Bye.
Pay attention.
(chuckles)
Bye!
(Duncan barks)
No...
He's just separated
the whole...
herd of sheep.
Someone separated
the whole herd of sheep.
(laughs)
Well, if you don't mind,
I'll blame him.
Now, this really
calls to mind
an interesting question:
let's say I got
really good at this.
Yeah...
(chuckles)
Why?
Yeah, why?
Why have you gone
to all this trouble?
Well, the, uh...
the fundamental thing
that I'm interested in
is sort of the nature
of intelligence.
What is it that sort of
is going on in our brains
that allows us to have the
everyday kind of intelligence
that gets us
through our day?
And that for me, dogs are
a perfect model of that
because dogs really
have dinky little brains--
their brains
are the size of lemons
if they're a big dog--
and yet they have
the kind of common sense
that probably underlies
90% of our behavior.
ALDA:
Duncan's common sense
along with this ball on a
stick
called an Ally-Oop
has allowed Bruce to train
him.
To find out how, we took a
break
from virtual dogs--
Duncan politely waving
good-bye-- to visit a real
one.
MAN:
See what he's doing?
ALDA:
Yeah.
ALDA:
This is Tug,
who lives in Phoenix
with his owner, Gary Wilkes.
Gary uses a clicker to tell
Tug
when he's done something
good--
in this case touch
the Ally-Oop with his nose--
then he gives him a treat.
What he was doing was paying
attention to the click.
The things which draw the
clicks
he will repeat.
In the meantime, if he's not
sure what caused the click
he's free to try other
things.
The same way that
if a door doesn't open
when you try
the doorknob
you might
do something else
like pull out a key.
He's sure
it has something
to do with paws.
ALDA:
By not clicking for awhile
Gary can get Tug
to experiment even more.
He knows it has
something to do
with the target
and he knows it has
something to do
with touching it
but he's not sure what.
And you're hearing
the vocalizations
coming through?
(barks)
ALDA:
But from Tug's
apparent frustration
comes inspiration.
Now, he just came back
and touched it
with his nose and paw.
He's trying to cover
all the bases
to make sure that...
Yeah, now he's
touching the ball
with his paw.
(barks)
And barking
and sitting.
He's throwing all kinds
of stuff in there.
Yeah.
He's giving us
more than our
money's worth.
Exactly.
Well, come
over here Tug.
Do something
with this thing.
ALDA:
I've come to Phoenix because
Bruce Blumberg has modeled
how he trains Duncan
on how Gary trains Tug.
The Ally-Oop provides Tug
with a target.
The idea here is to see if I
can
get Tug to go back and forth
between me and the target
even as I move further
and further away.
Tug does fine...
Ow!
apart from including my
fingers
with the treat.
WILKES:
There we go.
See how the click
stops the behavior?
It lets him know exactly
what he's supposed to do.
Twice, now, you've clicked
with him coming toward me
rather than actually
touching the ball.
And so what
you're teaching him to do
is to come to me
but return back to you.
And now let me
remove the target
and you'll see that
the behavior still exists.
ALDA:
Tug takes his usual finger or
two, then dutifully trots
off.
So far I've used no words
to get Tug to perform
just the click and the treat.
He's slowing down.
He looks
like he's thirsty.
ALDA:
But now it's time
for some commands.
So I'm going to say "right"
and then point...
click... treat.
If I do that
about 20 to 50 times
he will
automatically start
to integrate
that into it.
Right.
Click.
(clicking):
Okay.
Now, watch this.
Left.
(clicks)
Pretty quick.
Okay, left.
ALDA:
After associating
word and action
Tug now can recognize
the words as commands.
WILKES:
Don't be afraid
to do two in a row.
Make him go
to the right once.
Give him the click.
Now, on the way back
just ask him
to do another one.
Left.
This time
don't even click
just ask him
to go right.
Right.
See what's happening?
We're dropping
out the tools.
You don' t need to click
and treat every time.
After a while, you'll have
the
dog who just does the
behavior
and a sporadic occasional pat
on the head is all you need.
ALDA:
Now the question is
can I use what I've learned
from Tug to train Duncan.
Of course,
Duncan doesn't eat kibble.
ALDA:
Now, when
I do the click
that means he automatically
gets a treat.
BLUMBERG:
That's right.
It's a virtual thing.
So I don't have to wait
till he comes back to me
to give him a treat.
No.
I want to see
if I can get him to do
what I got Tug to do
to go back and forth
between two.
Now, that's cute,
but forget it.
Okay, you can click.
(clicks)
ALDA:
At first I use the clicker
simply to reward Duncan
for going to an Ally-Oop.
(clicks)
Then, just as I did with Tug
I add a command.
Left.
Click now.
ALDA:
To begin with,
I give the command
when he's already doing
what I want.
Right.
(clicks)
Left.
(Alda clicks,
then Duncan barks)
ALDA:
Now it's time to see
if he'll obey the command.
Right.
(clicks)
So it looks like
he's got that, huh?
Well, you never
can be too sure.
Shall I try
the same one again?
Try "left," actually.
Left.
ALDA:
But now Duncan, borrowing
a page from Tug's book
tries running through
his repertoire instead.
(Alda chuckles
as Duncan barks)
Now I understand
why dogs do this.
He's just trying out,
seeing what I like--
trying out a lot
of different things.
Say "left" again.
Left.
(Duncan barks)
He thinks
the blue one's left.
Oh, he does?
Say "left" again,
he'll go over.
Left.
He does.
You've actually
trained him
to go to the blue Ally-Oop.
Right.
Oh, he goes there
no matter what I say.
ALDA:
So far, Duncan is reminding
me
only too vividly
of dogs I have owned.
But now I'm going to see if
I can teach him something
new.
Jump.
ALDA:
Again, I first wait till
he jumps then I say the word.
Jump.
(clicks)
ALDA:
But now comes
the moment of truth.
Jump.
ALDA:
Will Duncan treat the word
as a command?
Cool!
He did it,
he got it.
Do it again,
do it again.
Jump.
(Duncan barks as Alda clicks)
Awesome!
Nice, huh?
You know, you are the...
this is
a pretty fresh demo
meaning, you are
the first person
outside of the group
that's actually
trained this dog.
Oh, that must make
you feel great
that an amateur can
do it, that's great.
Well, look, I know
it's pretty fast.
Now, I was getting
ready to tell you
that Tug learns faster.
No, he learns
much faster
than a real dog
at the moment.
But it's basically
the same mechanism
that's going on in Tug's
brain.
At least that's what
we're trying to model.
He won't stop
jumping now, look.
Jump.
Okay, bud, let's see what
you're
going to come up with now.
ALDA:
Back in Phoenix,
Tug neither knows nor cares
that Bruce Blumberg
is modeling his brain.
But his owner is impressed.
The perspective they have
there
at the Media Lab
is one of gradually
increasing the complexity
and what they've accomplished
so far is pretty remarkable.
And as he continues
to push in that direction
of adding sort of extra
bells and whistles to their
dogs
I find that they come
closer and closer
to what I know
real dogs to be like.
Good boy...
ALDA:
Bruce Blumberg
hasn't relied solely on Tug
for his insights into
what real dogs are like.
He also has own Silky Terrier
Sydney for inspiration.
But while Sydney
gets plenty of attention
before Bruce leaves
for the office
like a lot of dogs
he then spends much of the
day
waiting for him to return.
(barks)
So Bruce has a plan.
Touch, Sydney.
ALDA:
And this being Bruce
it inevitably involves
an Ally-Oop, a clicker
and a computer.
Yes, both Bruce and Sydney
are on the Net.
He hears your voice?
Over the microphone.
This is going
over the Internet.
Sydney, touch.
Good boy.
Right there I clicked
and now I can
give him food.
ALDA:
The food dispenser is also
controlled over the Internet.
BLUMBERG:
Sydney, touch.
ALDA:
Sydney may be enjoying the
game
but he still has
a mind of his own.
Down.
Down.
All right,
Sydney, sit.
There used to be
a vaudeville act like that.
Well, now he's down.
Now he's down.
Um, Sydney, touch.
Good boy.
What I'm really
interested in
is trying to see if
we can use technology
to enhance the lives
of these animals
and enhance a relationship
with these animals.
So, um, Sydney spends
most of the day alone
with Katey, our collie
and he's sleeping, he's
bored,
he's chewing on stuff.
And I'm at my office and
I'd love to be able to see
him.
Bored and chewing
on stuff.
Yeah, bored, chewing on stuff
and it's a problem,
you know?
The office furniture.
Pencils
are all gone.
You miss Sydney.
Right.
So I was thinking,
could we come up
with an interface that
would be fun for me
and fun for him?
And also maybe that
we could help do some
training
over the Internet
when I wasn't there.
How many sessions have you
had with Sydney now?
Three.
Three, that's all?
Yeah, this is literally
the third time.
Why don't we get him
to do something
he's never done?
Boy, you are brave.
Well, let's see.
Let's see
what you can do.
ALDA:
Rising to the challenge
Bruce has his graduate
student,
Ben Resner
who's at Sydney's end
of the Internet link
put a toy panda in his room.
When Bruce squeezes a twin
of the panda at his computer
Sydney's panda also cries.
(panda cries)
When Sydney noses the panda
in curiosity...
ALDA:
There he goes.
ALDA:
he gets a click and a treat.
It seems to me,
if you can get him
to consistently touch that
eventually he'll
take a bite or move it
and then you can start
to reward that
and you can get him
to move it across the room.
That's right,
that's right.
ALDA:
So let's see.
There we go.
Look, he gave it
a real shove.
Exactly.
(panda crying)
He's really
moving it now.
He's getting
very aggressive.
ALDA:
So there we are,
a world's first--
a terrier trained
over the Internet
to harass an annoying toy
panda.
Sydney.
ALDA:
We could have been
half a world away
or as Sydney decides to
reveal,
just next door.
(laughing)
Hi, Sydney.
Sydney, very good job.
Entertaining Parrots
Parrots demand attention. But new technology may help alleviate bird boredom.
Select text to jump ahead in the clip:
MAN:
What is it?
PARROT:
Key chain.
Good boy.
WOMAN:
Good birdie.
What a smart birdie.
ALDA:
We first met Alex ten years
ago.
He astonished us then.
What is it?
ALEX:
Rock.
Good boy, yeah,
that's right.
WOMAN:
Alex, what toy?
ALEX:
Nail.
Nail, that's right.
You're
a good birdie.
Tell me what color.
What color?
ALEX:
Yellow.
Yellow,
that's right.
ALDA:
He even knew
what things are made of.
MAN:
What matter?
ALEX:
Wood.
Yeah, that's right,
very good.
How many?
Good boy, how many?
ALDA:
Irene Pepperberg
was Alex's chief mentor.
ALEX:
Two.
Good parrot, good boy!
One, two.
Okay, one more
question on these.
What color bigger?
ALDA:
Back then, Irene and Alex
worked at
the University of Arizona.
You know, what
color bigger?
Yellow.
Good boy!
Good birdie!
Hello, Alex.
ALDA:
But when we caught up
with them recently
Irene was a visiting
professor
at MIT's media lab.
Um, can Alex do
any new things
since we
saw him last?
Yeah, we're going to do
a couple of new things.
I'm going to start
with some old things
just to warm him up
a little bit.
So these are
two objects
and we pulled them
out of the tray
and the neat thing
about this
is if he didn't
really understand
