Scientists are uncovering the healing power of plants with help from an unlikely source.

Chimpanzies.

For years, researchers at the University of Oxford have taken samples of plants favored by wild chimps to learn about their medicinal properties. and It's all about the survival of the fittest in the jungle and to stay fit you have to stay well.

According to new research, wild chimps are the champions at doing just that.

He's eating the wood.

Over the past four years, scientists have been observing two chimpanzee communities

in the forests of Uganda. They found that chimps that were

sick or injured were seeking out and eating plants that have pain relieving

and antibacterial properties.

Chimps have their diet and they stick to it relatively and several of these plants

are very, very rarely consumed.

So the fact that these sick or injured chimpanzees were seeking out these rare plants at the specific time

and other group members sitting nearby didn't seek them out. One can read

intentionality into that. In total, researchers collected 17 samples from

13 different plant species used by the chimps and sent

them to be tested in Germany.

In 45 of these we detected at least some antibiotic effects.

And the strongest activity

and the bacteria activity was actually

from a tree called Estonia Bonnai.

Discovering more plants with healing properties

could potentially have huge implications

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