Hi, I'm Scientific American Podcast Editor Steve Mursky.

And here's a short piece from the May 2018 issue of the magazine in the section we call

Advances, Dispatches from the Frontiers of science, technology, and medicine.

Arangutan Medicine by Doug Main.

Medicine is not exclusively a human invention.

Many other animals, from insects to birds to non-human primates,

have been known to self-medicate with plants and minerals

for infections and other conditions.

Behavioral ecologist Helen Morag Bernard of the Borneo Nator

Foundation has spent decades studying the islands orangutans

and says she has now found evidence they use plants in a previously

unseen medicinal way. During more than 20,000 hours of formal observation,

Morog Bernard and her colleagues watched 10 orangutangs

occasionally chew a particular plant, which is not part of their normal diet, into a foamy

lather and then rub it into their fur.

The apes spent up to 45 minutes at a time massaging the concoction onto their upper

arms or legs.

The researchers believe this behavior is the first known example of a

non-human animal using a topical analgesic. Local people use the same plant, an unremarkable

looking shrub with stalked leaves, to treat aches and pains.

Marogh Bernard's co-authors studied its chemistry. They added extracts from the plant to human cells that had been grown in a dish and had been

artificially stimulated to produce cytokines, an immune system response that

...