Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Sixty years ago, scientists embarked on an experiment to teach American Sign Language to chimpanzees—and ultimately prove humans ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. Listen 0:00 Back in the 1970s, a ...

SPOKANE, Wash. Washoe, a female chimpanzee believed to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept. Washoe, who first ...

Project Nim, a documentary film directed by James Marsh, is the story of scientist Herb Terrace and his experiment—initiated in December, 1973—to teach sign language to a chimpanzee named Nim. It is ...

Forty years ago, I published an article, "Can a Chimpanzee Create a Sentence?" My answer was, definitively, "No." At the time, that conclusion was controversial. It was also headline news because ...

Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept. Washoe, who first learned a bit of ...

She spent her early years playing in the backyard of a small house in Reno, Nev., learning American Sign Language from the scientists who adopted her. By age 5, she had mastered enough signs to ...

Socrates, a great philosopher, speculated that without verbal or written language, one could communicate using sign language. Little did he know that more than 2,000 years later, animals would be able ...

Back in the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky took part in a Columbia University research study called "Project Nim." Project Nim was led by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia who was ...