Alex the Par­rot spent his days work­ing with ani­mal psy­chol­o­gist Irene Pep­per­berg at Har­vard and Bran­deis. And, along the way, he upend­ed the belief held by many sci­en­tists that birds lack basic intel­li­gence and can only mim­ic words, and not real­ly use them in any mean­ing­ful way. As you’ll see below, Alex (who died in 2007 at the age of 31) could talk and do much more. To learn more about Alex, you can lis­ten to an extend­ed inter­view with Pep­per­berg here, or get her well-reviewed book Alex & Me: How a Sci­en­tist and a Par­rot Uncov­ered a Hid­den World of Ani­mal Intelligence–and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process.

Voila, the birth, life and death of a G‑type star, like our Sun. 12 bil­lion years boiled down to six sim­ple min­utes. We’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.

Aired first in Sep­tem­ber, this BBC pro­duc­tion asks famous sci­en­tists to offer impor­tant words of advice to the next Amer­i­can pres­i­dent. What does Oba­ma need to know to make smart deci­sions about key issues rang­ing from nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion to cli­mate change?

While work­ing on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, Astro­naut Don Pet­tit cre­at­ed this remark­able video of the auro­ra bore­alis (oth­er­wise known as The North­ern Lights). How? By stitch­ing togeth­er a large sequence of still images that he took from space. It makes for some good view­ing.

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via NYTimes DotEarth

It’s almost eerie to watch how a tor­na­do takes shape. As you’ll see below, it starts with a wisp of noth­ing much and, with­in min­utes, morphs into a ter­ri­ble force. For more pre­cise details on how tor­na­does form, you can check out this dynam­ic pre­sen­ta­tion over at USA Today.

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Yet fur­ther proof that ants are end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing, and, on a relat­ed note, see our ear­li­er piece: Cen­tral Intel­li­gence: From Ants to the Web.

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