Elephants can do math

Elephants are not going to do calculus anytime soon, but they can count small numbers and discern the difference between quantities in tests requiring basic addition. This report comes from experiments with an Asian elephant by Naoko Irie of the University of Tokyo. Ecologist Mya Thompson of Cornell commented that this finding leads to a new mystery: "It really is tough to figure out why [elephants] would need to count."