Forrest spent a week on the run in southeast Mississippi last October. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A rhesus macaque who spent a week on the lam in Mississippi in late October is finally settling into a new home over 990 miles from the original site of his escape. Popcorn Park Animal Refuge in Forked River, New Jersey, is now caring for Forrest, a young monkey from the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Covington, Louisiana. "The secret is out!" Popcorn Park posted to social media on December 2. Forrest's stressful saga began on October 28, 2025, when a transport truck crashed along Interstate 65 while carrying 21 monkeys from the Tulane Primate Research Center destined for a Florida biomedical research facility.

The size of monkey brains are influenced by social interactions, a new study revealed, finding more friends in a group leads to larger social regions in the brain. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, studied the brains, and social interactions of a group of rhesus macaques living on Cayo Santiago, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. They found that the number of social connections predicted the size of key nodes in parts of the brain responsible for social decision-making and empathy. Though all these findings relate specifically to free-ranging rhesus macaques, they have possible implications for human behavior, in particular to understanding neuro-developmental disorders like autism, according to the team. Researchers determined that, for macaques with more grooming partners, the mid–superior temporal sulcus (STS) and ventral-dysgranular insula grew larger.

The development of a vaccine to protect against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an urgent biomedical need. Yu et al. designed a series of prototype DNA vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is used by the virus to bind and invade human cells. Analysis of the vaccine candidates in rhesus macaques showed that animals developed protective humoral and cellular immune responses when challenged with the virus. Neutralizing antibody titers were also observed at levels similar to those seen in humans who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Science , this issue p. [806][1] The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has made the development of a vaccine a top biomedical priority. In this study, we developed a series of DNA vaccine candidates expressing different forms of the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein and evaluated them in 35 rhesus macaques. Vaccinated animals developed humoral and cellular immune responses, including neutralizing antibody titers at levels comparable to those found in convalescent humans and macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2. After vaccination, all animals were challenged with SARS-CoV-2, and the vaccine encoding the full-length S protein resulted in >3.1 and >3.7 log10 reductions in median viral loads in bronchoalveolar lavage and nasal mucosa, respectively, as compared with viral loads in sham controls. Vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibody titers correlated with protective efficacy, suggesting an immune correlate of protection. These data demonstrate vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in nonhuman primates. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abc6284

For male rhesus macaques hoping to woo a mate, it just might help to look a little macho. While researchers have long suspected that differing facial features among male and female primates of the same species may play a role in mate choice, the draw of'facial masculinity' has remained understudied outside of human subjects. To better understand how female monkeys perceive these traits, primatologists observed free-range rhesus macaques over a series of'looking-experiments.' The study revealed that the female macaques held their gaze longer when looking at more masculine faces – but, the researchers aren't exactly sure why. While researchers have long suspected that differing facial features among male and female primates of the same species may play a role in mate choice, the draw of'facial masculinity' has remained understudied outside of human subjects In the new study led by Penn State primatologist and biological anthropologist Kevin Rosenfield, researchers studied rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago, just off the east coast of Puerto Rico. The team observed the reactions of 107 female macaques presented with pairs of images of male faces.

Researchers have struggled to explain how we can identify familiar faces - or how that process is different from the way we perceive unfamiliar ones. Another question relates to different types of familiarity - for example, if you're looking at the face of a real-life acquaintance, or a celebrity's face that you've seen many times before. But researchers have started unraveling this mystery by working with rhesus monkeys - primates whose face-processing systems are similar to our own -discovering two previously unknown areas of the brain involved in face recognition. Researchers measured the brain activity of rhesus macaques as they responded to pictures of monkeys' faces. Because these areas are located in regions of the brain associated with memory, studying these areas could provide new insights into cognitive processes that go well beyond vision.