Simon Fraser University

Definitive evidence that HIV-AIDS is not from oral polio vaccine

HIV-AIDS did not come from oral polio vaccine contaminated with chimpanzee virus, reports researchers. Belief that polio vaccine can spread AIDS has hampered the World Health Organization’s efforts to stamp out polio. In Nigeria, several states recently banned use of the vaccine. Nigeria now has the highest number of polio cases in the world. Although scientists agree that HIV comes from a chimpanzee simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that infected humans, when and how SIV jumped the species barrier has not been definitively determined.

New evidence for orangutan culture

An international collaboration of primatologists has gleaned evidence from decades of observations of orangutans that the apes show behaviors that are culturally based.
The scientists’ findings push back the origins of culturally transmitted behavior to 14 million years ago, when orangutans first evolved from their more primitive primate ancestors. Previous evidence for cultural transmission in chimpanzees suggested an origin of cultural traits 7 million years ago. The researchers also warn that illegal logging and other habitat destruction in the forests of Sumatra and Borneo could not only threaten further research into the earliest origins of culture, but continue the dangerous decline in orangutan populations.