Taste Mutation Helps Monkeys Enjoy Human Food

It's hard to be a primate who lives in northern climes and doesn't wear clothes. Resources are scarce, and you have to seize every advantage you can to stay alive and swinging. That may be why one group of monkeys has evolved an impaired tasting gene. Their worse sense of taste means they can better take advantage of the foods around them—especially the crops their human neighbors grow. Japanese macaques, or Macaca fuscata, are also called snow monkeys. They live farther north than any other non-human primate. To stay warm, they huddle together or take dips in hot springs. Sometimes their home forests are washed away by tsunamis. All things considered, they do OK. But researchers in Japan recently discovered a genetic mutation that might give some of these macaques a boost. The mutation is in one gene in a group called the TAS2Rs. In mammals such as you, the ...