Turkeys: The world's smartest birds

Written byIvan Oransky

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Now that 21 people have been infected with avian flu in Turkey, there has been a proliferation of news about the bird which Ben Franklin, who linkurl:celebrated his 300th birthday yesterday;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/22973/ , suggested as the US?s linkurl:national bird;http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/turkey.html . It turns out that turkeys are remarkably intelligent and technologically sophisticated. Today?s winner: linkurl:?Turkey able to develop bird flu vaccine: professor.?;http://english.people.com.cn/200601/18/eng20060118_236506.html That's one smart bird. I only hope she turns her attention to a human H5N1 vaccine after she develops the one for her own species. Then there?s the one about the turkey telephone. It's a bit of a throwback but it's nearly as powerful as the Treo: TURKEY TELEPHONE NEWS BRIEFING AT 1500 CET - WHO AVIAN FLU TEAM LEADER TO SPEAK WITH JOURNALISTS One colleagues? response: it feeds on Blackberries. Another?s: I had a duck phone once. This epidemic may get worse before it gets better.

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