Scientists at Tulane University's Primate Research Center announced they have taught a gorilla that someday it will die. Nate Meredith has more in the lab report. Thanks, Dan. In an historic first, a team of primatologists has succeeded in teaching Quigley, a western lowland gorilla, the concept of mortality and his inevitable doom. Lana Burrows and Philip Townsend are the researchers leading the project. When we first started with Quigley, he was just a normal, happy ape. Not a care in the world. The first thing we did was we taught him patterns like red block, blue block, green block, over and over. Then it became a pattern of... Gorilla born, gorilla grow, gorilla die, over and over. Right. The researchers then showed Quigley photographs of dead and dying gorillas while communicating the phrases, you someday, and no choice. It took thousands of repetitions, but Quigley finally became cognizant of the correlation between himself and the decomposing pile of hair and flesh in the photo. Quigley shared his feelings in a confessional after completing each exercise. That was a great moment. Quigley also began painting pictures like these almost every day. To make sure Quigley retains the awareness of his own demise, the team spends several hours per day reinforcing the certainty of death's arrival. Quigley, you die. You will die soon. The researchers say at first Quigley could only communicate rudimentary fears about his own death. But he soon moved on to expressing more complex emotions, like indifference and self-hatred. And just two days ago, Philip Townsend and his colleagues even witnessed what they believed to have been a panic attack in Quigley. He was letting out these anguished cries and banging his head against the wall, and I just thought, we did it. The Tulane scientists believe that we may be able to teach a gorilla to resort to alcoholism, or even try to kill itself in as little as a decade. The scientists next plan to test whether the results with Quigley can be replicated with other species. They are in the initial stages of teaching bunny rabbits that they will all die. You will both... Die. These are thrilling times. For the Lab Report, I'm Nate Meredith. Thanks, Nate. Scientists in Britain are conducting a similar study, teaching a mouse with a human ear grafted to its back what a freak it is.