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Knut , who charmed visitors to the Berlin Zoo as an orphaned cub in 2007, died in his enclosure today in front of a crowd of 600-700 people. Knut was only four years old, as opposed to the typical polar bear lifespan of 15-18 years. Tragedy seems to have followed Knut for his entire brief life: his twin died at only four days old, and the zookeeper who hand-raised him died in 2008. As Knut grew, he stopped being the cute cuddly cub everybody loved; like many zoo animals, his behavior became problematic, and people avoided visiting him. A post-mortem is scheduled for Monday.
posted by briank on Mar 19, 2011 - 79 comments

Patrick McGoohan has died. The BBC and other news agencies are reporting the death of actor Patrick McGoohan, following a brief illness. He was 80 years old. McGoohan is best known as the star and co-producer of the 1960s cult classic TV series "The Prisoner", which we have discussed here many times, most recently last week when AMC announced that it would stream all of the original episodes on its website. AMC has also been producing a remake of the series starring Jim Caviezel (as Number 6) and Ian McKellen (as Number 2) for broadcast this fall. [more inside]
posted by briank on Jan 14, 2009 - 116 comments

Alex, the African Gray parrot who "spoke" over 100 words, has passed away. y2karl introduced MetaFilter to Alex a few years ago. Alex had been the subject of Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research for nearly 20 years. His ability to communicate with people using an extensive English vocabulary demonstrated a level of intelligence previously unthought of in birds, but critics include no less than Noam Chomsky himself. Here's a 1999 NYT article about Alex if you have never heard of this incredible bird, and a video of another gray parrot demonstrating its own talents.
posted by briank on Sep 10, 2007 - 55 comments