When you think of “intelligent animals,” pigeons are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. After all, they’re just birds, how intelligent could they possibly be, right? Well, it looks like we, at least I, may not have been giving them the respect they deserve when I imagine how easy it would be to just kick one while walking down the street. No, it seems that pigeons can develop a grasp of the abstract concept of “numbers” just as well as many primates. It may not relate to their everyday lives, but they can still figure it out, which is pretty impressive.

While traveling in Costa Rica, filmmaker Todd Bieber did not find himself grappling with danger. Instead, he found himself utterly taken by the residents of a monkey sanctuary. Though extremely cute, many of these monkeys were either orphaned or injured on the country’s numerous uninsulated power lines. But the tireless workers at the Nosara Wildlife Rescue have made it their mission to rehabilitate their guests, and help keep more monkeys from dying.

It’s a bit of a tear-jerker, but Bieber’s short documentary about his trip and the Nosara rescue is well worth your time. See it, after the break.

While many of you are probably familiar with the thought experiment about the infinite number of monkeys chained to an infinite number of typewriters eventually producing the works of Shakespeare, few of you have probably attempted this. Programmer Jesse Anderson, however, is giving it his best shot and his million-strong army of virtual monkeys are 99.990% through reproducing the Bard’s corpus. Amazingly, they’ve only been at it since late August.

There are a few middling differences between the thought experiment and Anderson’s approach. First and foremost, Anderson’s monkeys only exist on a computer in the form of software that produces random nine-character strings. Second, Anderson uses an evolutionary approach which saves only the worthwhile character strings and discards the rest. So instead of waiting for the single impossibly lucky monkey that just happens to bang out every word of Shakespeare, the monkeys are working together; chipping away nine characters at a time.

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(title image via Reddit)

The Internet Animal Orchestra, a brilliant video compilation painstakingly assembled by RatherGood, screaming monkeys, rabbits, snapping shrimp, a dog that screams ‘elm,’ a woodpecker, a cow, turtles and tortoises, a bald eagle, an echolocating bat, a boxer dog, an elephant, a husky that says ‘I love you,’ a Sumatran tiger cub, a sheep, a goat, a rooster, a humpback whale and her calf, a piano-playing pig, several owls and miscellaneous dogs join voices and noisy appendages to bring you one glorious song.

Well now: Here is an insane rumor which — spoiler alert — is not at all true. People’s Daily Online, the website of the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, claims that the Taliban is training “monkey terrorists” to “use the Kalashnikov, Bren light machine gun and trench mortars … [to] identify and attack soldiers wearing U.S. military uniforms.”

Here’s the fiendish part of the Taliban’s scheme which is not real: Not only would armed and dangerous monkeys be fighting on the wrong side of the War Against Terror, but animal lovers would pressure the U.S. government to withdraw troops from the country, because the prospect of injuring Kalashnikov-toting monkeys is far more upsetting to them than any other concern one could possibly raise about the war in Afghanistan. According to People’s Daily, which is not the Chinese edition of Weekly World News, “A senior U.S. military source confirmed the existence of the Taliban monkey soldiers, military experts call armed monkeys ‘monkey terrorists.’”

But there’s only one hitch to this untrue rumor which cites as its primary evidence unnamed sources and “media outlets” and the above badly Photoshopped picture of a terrorist monkey: It isn’t true.

Back in November, Marvel Comics announced a new villain to be appearing in Deadpool, their title regarding the Merc With a Mouth: Hit-man Monkey.

Yes. That hit-man monkey.

Or, rather, Hit-Monkey. Well, Hit-Monkey had his Marvel Digital Comics Exclusive story told in December, and was named dropped in January’s issue of Deadpool, as an assassin that even Deadpool himself fears. He will be making his first non-solo appearance in this week’s issue. If your tastes run towards forth wall breaking and monkeys with guns, you might want to pick it up.

From Marvel.com:

“Hitman Monkey is a soulful, tortured, jazz-loving 30-pound engine of destruction,” explains Executive Editor Axel Alonso… “Let’s be clear: Hitman Monkey is the harrowing tale of a Macaque monkey from the mountains of Japan who, though fate and circumstance, is transformed into the world’s deadliest assassin… I fail to see what could be funny about-oh. I see your point.”

(TECHNORATI CLAIM TOKEN; IGNORE THIS, HUMANS:

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)

Just… just gather up your inner child and let it play in the other room for a moment.

Are they gone? Ok. Then it might be safe for you to watch “Werner Herzog Reads Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel.”

The German auteur (not actually the German auteur) lends his unique interpretation of Western society and modern existence to the colorful children’s story, and we were uncomfortably surprised at how well they intersect.