A new study by Anna Maria Niewiadomska and Robert Gifford, of The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, reveals that reticuloendotheliosis viruses (REVs), which originated in mammals, spread to birds as a result of medical intervention. Their findings will be published August 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology.
"We became intrigued by these viruses", says Gifford, "…because their distribution in nature suggests something very unusual has occurred during their evolution."