Israeli medical marijuana creates buzz but no high will it go global? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-medical-marijuana-creates-buzz-but-no-high-will-it-go-global/2015/01/31/558fe072-a19a-11e4-9f89-561284a573f8_story.html?tid=pm_world_pop)

Named Rafael, for a healing angel called upon by Moses, this varietal of cannabis is for people who dont want to be under the influence, and it is available in oral doses in Israel.Israel has become a world leader in science on the medical uses of marijuana, and its producers could become major exporters of medical cannabis, experts say. But so far the government has allowed them to export only their knowledge not the actual product.

Ebola outbreak: Virus mutating, scientists warn(http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31019097)

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious.

More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it's able to jump more easily from person to person

It's not unusual for viruses to change over a period time. Ebola is an RNA virus - like HIV and influenza - which have a high rate of mutation. That makes the virus more able to adapt and raises the potential for it to become more contagious.

Ebola Drug Trial Is Halted for Lack of Patients(http://nyti.ms/1DvaJoh)

A clinical trial in Liberia of a drug to treat Ebola has been halted because of a sharp decline in the number of people infected with the virus, and studies in West Africa of other potential treatments are also facing problems finding patients.

The halted trial was testing the antiviral drug brincidofovir at a clinic in Monrovia, Liberia. The developer of the drug, Chimerix, announced late Friday that it would no longer participate in the study.The World Health Organization reported last week that the number of new cases in the three most affected countries Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone had fallen below 100 a week for the first time since June. In Liberia, there were only four new cases in the seven days ending Jan. 25, the organization said.

As Ebola Ebbs in Africa, Focus Turns From Death to Life (http://nyti.ms/1Ds3mxT)MONROVIA, Liberia Life is edging back to normal after the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.

At the height of the epidemic, Liberians met horrific deaths inside the blue-painted walls of the Nathaniel V. Massaquoi Elementary School, as classrooms became Ebola holding centers and the education of a nations children, shuttered in their homes for safety, was abruptly suspended.

Now, parents are streaming into the schoolyard once again, not to visit their stricken loved ones, but with their restless children in tow, to register for the start of classes in a delayed and shortened academic year.

New Ebola cases in Liberia, where streets were littered with the dead just a few months ago, now number in the single digits, according to the World Health Organization. In neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other two nations in the Ebola hot zone, new cases have fallen sharply in the last month, dropping to fewer than 100 in a week at the end of January a level not seen in the region since June.With a virus as deadly as Ebola, officials warn that the epidemic will not be over until cases reach zero in all three countries. But after nearly 9,000 deaths from the disease, the W.H.O. announced last week that it was focusing on a goal that had seemed out of reach for much of last year: ending the Ebola epidemic, no longer simply slowing its spread.

How the Fight Against Ebola Tested a Cultures Traditions (http://news-beta.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/150130-ebola-virus-outbreak-epidemic-sierra-leone-funerals/)But Anoko and others familiar with local customs helped health officials realize that they could not curb Ebola until they found ways to accommodate deeply held beliefs about the obligations of the living to the dying and the dead.

As health workers and burial teams have altered their procedures, and as political, tribal, and religious leaders pressed people to adapt their traditional ceremonies, the spread of Ebola has begun to slow.

In the three countries hit hardest by Ebola, preparations for burial typically are carried out by community members who handle the dead with bare hands, rather than by doctors, morticians, and funeral home directors. People were unwilling to have those practices casually tossed aside. That worked in Ebolas favor. As death approaches, virus levels peak. Anyone who touches a droplet of sweat, blood, or saliva from someone about to die or just deceased is at high risk of contracting the disease.To health authorities, the solution was simple. With so much at stake, science eclipses religion: Risky rituals must end.