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Nature's Numbers

Counting parrots and lemurs, Alex Bellos seeks clues to how our species evolved and acquired its mathematical abilities.

Lemurs and parrots accompany maths writer Alex Bellos as he explores the foundations of our ability to understand numbers. What are the fundamental numerical skills we share with other animals? What accounts for our species’ unique abilities to do calculations which other creatures cannot? Alex meets Teres the lemur as the Madagascan primate undergoes a maths test. He also tells the amazing story of Alex, the African grey parrot, and meets professor Irene Pepperberg who guided her feathered pupil to extraordinary mathematical achievements.

(Photo: Lemurs. Credit: Andrew Luck-Baker)

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27 minutes

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Tue 5 Jan 2016 14:32GMT
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