Speed Reads
Scientists have long known that elephants are uniquely intelligent, but new footage from The Smithsonian further drives this point home. This video, captured by researchers from the City University of New York, shows an elephant named Kandula using a cube as a step-stool to reach a piece of fruit. This discovery contributes to recent experiments that show elephants are far more capable of tool-use, problem solving, and empathy than previously thought, according to Scientific American. --Monica Nickelsburg