A Show About Animals

It’s the early 1970s, and grad student Penny Patterson sets out to investigate a big question: is language a uniquely human skill? So she begins an ambitious experiment -- with the help of a young gorilla named Koko. Pretty soon, Penny says Koko is learning sign language. But som ...  Show more

Koko is learning signs at lightning speed, and Penny’s getting all kinds of attention for her work. But defining language isn’t exactly straightforward. And now, the San Francisco Zoo wants Koko back. 

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.