macaques

A new study asks a simple-sounding question: will a macaque eat a grape placed on a pile of faeces? Researchers used the setup to test whether monkeys show germophobia, avoiding food that could carry pathogens. The findings are drawing attention from readers interested in disease transmission and how contamination-avoidance behaviour evolved in animals and humans alike.

Recordings from two macaques suggest face-processing neurons alternated roughly 15 times per second between an image the animals were inferred to consciously see and one suppressed from awareness. The striking result comes from an unreviewed preprint, and since macaques cannot verbally report their experience, researchers must rely on inference, leaving room for debate about how to interpret the rapid switching.

King Alexander I of Greece died on this day in 1920 at age 27, weeks after being bitten by a macaque at the royal palace gardens in Athens. The king, who reigned from 1917 to 1920 amid a national split over World War I, developed sepsis from the wound. The anniversary is being marked in history and travel discussions recalling his unusual death and its political aftermath.

King Alexander I of Greece died on this day in 1920 at the age of 27, three weeks after being bitten by a monkey at the royal palace at Tatoi. He had been walking his dog when a fight broke out between the dog and a Barbary macaque. The bite became infected and sepsis set in. His unexpected death changed Greece's royal succession and the course of its war with Turkey.