Nonhuman primates like rhesus monkeys share certain characteristics with people that may make them better study subjects than mice for research on neurodegenerative diseases.
About 60 per cent of monkeys, apes, lemurs, lorises and tarsiers are threatened with extinction. Climate change will only make it more difficult for them to survive.
Medical research to benefit people is first conducted in animals. Creating a new biomedical model by inserting human immune cells into pigs may lead to new insights and treatments.
Scientists don’t ask how some people evolved to be tall. In the same way, asking how homosexuality evolved is the wrong question. We need to ask how human sexuality evolved in all its forms.
Researchers in China have produce a world first: gene edited, cloned macaque monkeys. They say such animals will be vital for research on human health – but ethical concerns remain.
The media regularly report impressive medical advances, but not the animal research that plays a critical role in developing the new treatment or giving us insights into basic science.
Evolution also does not claim humans evolved from primates. Neither does it say non-human primates, including monkeys, baboons, chimpanzees and gorillas, will evolve into humans with time.
Draft guildelines for the use of non-human primates in research will dilute what protections these animals have, despite numerous reasons to stop the practice entirely.
It may come as a surprise to discover that it is perfectly legal in the UK to keep primates, such as marmosets, loris, capuchins or squirrel monkeys, as pets. Perhaps more surprising still is that there…
Professor, Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences and Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Florey Department of Neuroscience & Mental Health, The University of Melbourne