A short story about a human given immortality as part of an experiment

I'm looking for a short story that was part of a series of short stories my father told me.

One of them is about a human given immortality or extended life by aliens to figure out how humans work. He escapes by slowly corroding his prison with his saliva.

The aliens, or whoever had him, wanted to figure out why humanity would explode out into the universe and then go back home.

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