Origins of The Ick: The Protective Function of Disgust

Send us Fan Mail Why would a monkey refuse a free grape? In this Heliox deep dive, we explore a Royal Society Open Science study of macaques at a Texas sanctuary showing that disgust, our instinctive “ew,” works like an ancient behavioral immune system. Researchers coated monkey feces in clear epoxy to remove smell and germs, then watched the monkeys choose. Troop-raised macaques avoided the food; many former pets did not. After a deadly retrovirus outbreak, even uninfected survivors became m...