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Post by Cullyn Of Cerrmor on Jun 8, 2014 18:42:44 GMT 9.5
He can cook, play music, use a computer - and make sarcastic jokes chatting with his 3,000-word vocabulary: My lunch with the world's cleverest chimp (who Skyped me later for another chat)
By TOM LEONARD IN DES MOINES, IOWA PUBLISHED: 07:20 AEST, 7 June 2014 | UPDATED: 22:44 AEST, 7 June 2014He’s just had to sit through his offspring’s fourth birthday party, with the youngster tearing open his presents and jumping all over daddy’s head in his excitement. So I can understand the expression of weariness on Kanzi’s face when I ask him what he wants for lunch. Then someone mentions the word ‘omelette’ — a Kanzi favourite, not just to eat but even to cook — and he’s off. He clambers on to a ledge in the viewing room of his concrete, steel and glass home and positions himself in front of a large, touch-sensitive computer screen showing a grid of some 400 symbols, or ‘lexigrams’, each representing a particular object or idea. A huge forefinger skims dextrously over the icons, pressing the ones he wants. The computer voices his selections with an American accent. He summons eggs, onions, lettuce, grapes, pineapple. His four-year-old son, Teco, comes up behind and presses ‘M&Ms’, pointing at a table behind me where, just visible, there is indeed a bag of the sweets. Smart kid — he’ll go far. Read More: Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook WOW this chimp is smarter than some people I have known.
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