Attention New York metropolitan area Radiolabbers: Our Robert Krulwich will be on stage this Sunday at the 92nd Street Y with animal communications scientist Irene Pepperberg to talk about her late, lamented but wonderously remarkable African Grey parrot Alex.

Alex The Parrot was able to label objects, correctly use colors, concoct new words to describe unfamiliar knickknacks; he could use numbers, he could add, he could even use the word ‘none’, displaying a sophistication that no one thought birds could manage. Was Alex a one-of-a-kind genius? Merely a clever mime? What kind of mind lay hidden inside his feathery head? Irene thinks he had an inner life. The powerful science magazine Nature thinks Alex was all instinct, and like Winnie the Poo, of “very little” brain. We will discuss.

The 92nd Street Y is located at 1395 Lexington Avenue on, yes, 92nd Street.
The program begins at 7:30
Tickets are $27, half price for students with I.D.s.