Scientists at Tulane university's primate research center

announce they have taught a gorilla that someday it will die.

Nate Meredith has more in "The Lab Report".

"The Lab Report"

Thanks Stan.

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 Borrows and Phillip 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.

The researchers then showed Quigley photographs of dead, dying gorillas,

while communicating the phrases, "You some day" and "No choice".

It took thousands of repetitions, but Quigley finally became cognisant

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.

Muscles. Mine.

Will rot away.

-That was a great moment. -Yes.

Quigley also began painting pictures like these almost everyday,

to make sure Quigley retains the awareness of his own demise

the team spent several hours per day reinforcing the certainty of deaths 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.

Stupid Quigley.

Now sees truth.

Existence. Cruel joke.

And just two days ago Phillip Townsend and his colleagues even witnessed

what they believe to have been a panic attack in Quigley.

He was letting out these anguished cries and banging his head against the wall.

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're on 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.

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