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In an editorial published online today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, experts from the Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University, New York, are calling for survivors of the Ebola epidemic to be mobilised in a bid to hasten containment of the disease.

In a world first study researchers have found a coral-eating fish that disguises its smell to hide from predators.

"For many animals vision is less important than their sense of smell," says study lead author Dr Rohan Brooker from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University.

"Because predators often rely on odors to find their prey, even visually camouflaged animals may stick out like a sore thumb if they smell strongly of 'food'." Dr Brooker says.

Poor professional performance is an unlikely cause of delays in referral for suspected cancer, argue researchers in The BMJ this week.

Instead, such delays largely reflect "limitations in scientific knowledge and in the organisation and delivery of healthcare." And they question government plans to rank general practices according to how promptly patients are referred to specialist services for suspected cancer.

Most exaggeration in health related science news is already present in academic press releases, finds a study published in The BMJ this week.

The researchers suggest that improving the accuracy of academic press releases "could represent a key opportunity for reducing misleading health related news."

The analysis of 3,494 contracts awarded by 182 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England between April 2013 and August 2014 - disclosed to the BMJ under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act - showed that in total, non NHS providers have secured 45% of contracts awarded since April 2013.

A total of 1,149 contracts (33%) were awarded to private sector providers, 335 contracts (10%) were awarded to voluntary and social enterprise sector providers, while 100 contracts (2%) were awarded to other providers, such as joint ventures or local authorities.

Supplemental ultrasound screening for all U.S. women with dense breasts would substantially increase healthcare costs with little improvement in overall health, according to senior author Anna Tosteson, ScD, at Dartmouth Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- When a large protein unfolds in transit through a cell, it slows down and can get stuck in traffic. Using a specialized microscope -- a sort of cellular traffic camera -- University of Illinois chemists now can watch the way the unfolded protein diffuses.

Studying the relationship between protein folding and transport could provide great insight into protein-misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's. Chemistry professor Martin Gruebele and graduate students Minghao Guo and Hannah Gelman published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE.

An examination of the effect of resident duty hour reforms in 2011 finds no significant change in outcomes for general surgery patients, according to a study in the December 10 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.

Ravi Rajaram, M.D., of the American College of Surgeons, Chicago, and colleagues conducted a study to determine if the 2011 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) duty hour reform was associated with a change in general surgery patient outcomes or in resident examination performance.

Among primary care physicians, the spending patterns in the regions in which their residency program was located were associated with expenditures for subsequent care they provided as practicing physicians, with those trained in lower-spending regions continuing to practice in a less costly manner, even when they moved to higher-spending regions, and vice versa, according to a study in the December 10 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.

An analysis of the non-English-language skills of U.S. medical residency applicants finds that although they are linguistically diverse, most of their languages do not match the languages spoken by the U.S. population with limited English proficiency, according to a study in the December 10 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.

There has been a doubling during the last decade in the number of U.S. medical schools that have student-run free clinics, with more than half of medical students involved with these clinics, according to a study in the December 10 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Clinical recommendations discouraging the use of CYP2D6 gene testing to guide tamoxifen therapy in breast cancer patients are based on studies with flawed methodology and should be reconsidered, according to the results of a Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Yeast cells can sometimes reverse the protein misfolding and clumping associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's, according to new research from the University of Arizona.

The new finding contradicts the idea that once prion proteins have changed into the shape that aggregates, the change is irreversible.

"It's believed that when these aggregates arise that cells cannot get rid of them," said Tricia Serio, UA professor and head of the department of molecular and cellular biology. "We've shown that's not the case. Cells can clear themselves of these aggregates."

E-cigarettes appear to be less addictive than cigarettes for former smokers and this could help improve understanding of how various nicotine delivery devices lead to dependence, according to researchers.

"We found that e-cigarettes appear to be less addictive than tobacco cigarettes in a large sample of long-term users," said Jonathan Foulds, professor of public health sciences and psychiatry, Penn State College of Medicine.

PHILADELPHIA -Researchers at Penn Medicine, in collaboration with a multi-center international team, have shown that a protease inhibitor, simeprevir, a once a day pill, along with interferon and ribavirin has proven as effective in treating chronic Hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) as telaprevir with interferon and ribavirin, the standard of care in developing countries. Further, simeprevir proved to be simpler for patients and had fewer adverse events. The complete study is now available online and is scheduled to publish in January 2015 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.