Bird Brained

Irene Pepperberg, a visiting professor of animal behavior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is teaching a parrot how to surf the Internet. “Parrots are very social creatures,” she says, but people who own them “leave them alone eight or nine hours a day.” She says that leads to boredom and stress, and that leads to behavioral problems. She is developing special bird-enabled software, “InterPet Explorer”, to make it easier for the animals to find sites of interest, such as those showing wildlife and music, or perhaps even chat rooms populated only by animals. (AP) ...“Polly was a cracker,” a police spokesman confirmed after the parrot was arrested for breaking into web sites.