2. A Gorilla Who Lied

A rival ape language experiment takes shape. Herbert Terrace, a psychology professor at Columbia University, moves a chimp into a brownstone, names him Nim Chimpsky, and hires an entire team to teach him sign language. Can a chimp create a sentence? 

Nim the chimp moves uptown into a picturesque mansion in the Bronx. But the experiment only gets harder to manage. And Dr. Herb Terrace reveals a shocking conclusion. 

The claws come out at a major science conference in New York, throwing into question the field of animal language research and the future of Project Koko. 

Today we are sharing an episode from one of our newest series -- A Show About Animals. This season, we tell the strange and wonderful story of the wildly famous Koko the “talking” Gorilla. In the early 1970s, a grad student named Penny Patterson set out to investigate a big quest ... Show More

<p>Recorded live before the pandemic in January 2020 at the Castro Theatre for San Francisco Sketchfest, Josh and Chuck explore the 70s movement that attempted to teach apes human language and the Ape Language Wars that erupted from it.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choice ... Show More

“It’s interesting that we became enthusiastic about ASL in the process of teaching it to a population that couldn’t benefit from it.”Mike tells Sarah about a very special ape and the very problematic humans around her. Digressions include video dating, "Biography" and the terribl ... Show More

How is it that we can talk?  Why are we the only animal that can successfully produce audio podcasts that can be listened to and understood?  And who wants to get to know Washoe the chimpanzee? 

If we could talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals, what would we say? We’d better start thinking of something good because researchers are learning to speak sperm whale, prairie dog, and a bunch of other species' languages.See omnystudio.com/listener ... Show More

On today's show, is this animal speaking English? Can you tell what it's saying? It 100% sounds like he's trying to say a real word. For the whole podcast, as well as a ton of other exclusive perks, sign up to be a Fancy Idiot at FreeBeerAndHotWings.com! Hosted on Acast. See acas ... Show More

This week we learn about animal communication straight from the horses mouth. Dr Gillian Forrester, from the University of Sussex, describes how gorillas use tactile signals to communicate, Dr Katie Slocombe, from the University of St. Andrews, talks about her work on how chimpan ... Show More

Chelsea and her dog discuss squeaky sounds, documentaries (Tell Them You Love Me), Rie Parenting, and assess inventory of how product is moving. Also: gramma impressions, hummingbird asmr, big dogs. A blood pants customer calls to discuss carbon underwear. Chelsea tries to speak ... Show More

Do you have a bond with a household pet? Do they understand what you say to them -- and, if so, how much? In the first part of this two-part series, Ben, Matt and Noel dive deep into a question that's mystified humanity since the dawn of history: Can we really talk to non-human a ... Show More