40 monkeys escape from research facility in South Carolina
19 points by austinallegro 15 hours ago | 16 comments
  • keernan 14 hours ago |
    Since this is a research facility, it would be nice to receive confirmation the monkeys are disease free.
    • datavirtue 13 hours ago |
      I would have trouble signing off on a disease-free monkey.
      • keernan 12 hours ago |
        I thought the first part of my sentence referencing it being a research facility provided the context to understand that natural disease wasn't the focus of the comment. Oh well.
    • hinkley 11 hours ago |
      It was the blood. There was something in the blood.
    • jeppine 9 hours ago |
      It's more of a breeding facility. The locals call it the "Monkey Farm". They probably want them to be as disease free as possible for the labs that buy them.

      There is also a controversial "Monkey Island" on Morgan Island in St. Helena Sound.

      • keernan 7 hours ago |
        Before I commented, and did a search to read about Alpha Genesis. Their website says one of their services is conducting experimental research on monkeys as designed by the customer.

        I am not saying you are wrong. Your comment suggests you know the facility or at least live in the area and have some personal knowledge which certainly trumps anything I know (limited to searching the internet). After seeing your comment above, I did another search and the very top result was Google generated with a Q&A about this facility and the monkeys getting loose - and the first Q/A I saw had an answer that stated the monkeys at the facility are injected with disease (it is a confusing QA and I question the origin of what is posted).

        https://www.google.com/search?q=Alpha+Genesis&oq=Alpha+Genes...

  • ABraidotti 13 hours ago |
    Don't offer them your typewriter(s) yet.

    > The results reveal that it is possible (around a 5% chance) for a single chimp to type the word "bananas" in its own lifetime.

    https://phys.org/news/2024-10-monkey-unable-hamlet-lifetime-...

    • K0balt 9 hours ago |
      Oh crap, I already shorted openAI.
  • andrewstuart 12 hours ago |
    The older I get the more I hate cruelty to animals.

    Even worse that it’s our evolutionary cousins.

  • borutz 12 hours ago |
    Oh, shit. There goes the planet.
  • r14c 12 hours ago |
    Good for them. I hope they get to live a real life now, but I can't say I'm optimistic about it..
  • RecycledEle 11 hours ago |
    I thought it was 12 monkeys in the movie...
    • gonzo 6 hours ago |
      It was the 12 Monkeys Army (movie and book) who’s only “terroristic act” was releasing a lot of animals from a zoo.
  • addicted 4 hours ago |
    Our descendants are gonna look at horror at how we have been capturing, breeding, torturing and then killing sentient animals, for the most part completely unnecessarily.

    80bn land animals are bred and killed annually for food alone. Completely unnecessarily.

    • musicale 4 hours ago |
      I think "Star Trek" (fictitious 22nd-24th century?) may have had that perspective. We may not have food replicators yet but artificial and lab-grown meat seem to be happening. And we're already building AI systems that rely on an energy supply rather than traditional food.

      There are probably many popular 21st century practices that will not age well (along with obviously bad practices that may very well persist.)

      As a mundane example, lead pipes for water[1] seem like a bad idea (ask the Romans), but drinking out of plastic containers also seems bad[2].

      [1] https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-in...

      [2] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1223730333/bottled-water-plas...

  • musicale 4 hours ago |
    Like many, the monkeys were dissatisfied with the status quo. Presumably they voted to cut animal research funding.