Should unqualified practitioners be trained to deliver basic patient care to alleviate India's doctor shortage, asks a special report published by The BMJ today?

Unqualified practitioners posing as qualified doctors, and who administer potentially dangerous treatments to patients -- so called quacks -- are numerous throughout India, particularly in rural areas, writes Bangalore journalist Priyanka Pulla.

Although punishment for quackery can be up to seven years in prison, officials from state medical councils say state governments and police aren't taking action to reign in the problem.

Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) have identified how two proteins control the growth of the heart and its adaptation to high blood pressure (hypertension). Lead investigator Dr. Guadalupe Sabio explains that the results, described in Nature Communications, not only increase our understanding of the mechanisms used by cardiac cells to grow and adapt, but could also help in the design of new strategies to treat heart failure caused by excessive growth of the heart. The study, carried out by Dr. Sabio and CNIC investigator Bárbara Gonzalez-Terán, shows for the first time that two proteins, p38 gamma and p38 delta, control heart growth.

This animal has done everything right. It has been around for 300 million years, outlived the dinosaurs and survived the catastrophic meteorite impact, warm phases and glacial periods. Even today, it continues to populate the sea at depths where it eats carrion and hunts prey. The Atlantic hagfish (Myxine glutinosa) is not really attractive at first glance. In fact, most people probably consider it quite disgusting. Nevertheless, the hagfish - or rather its slime - has caught the attention of a group of ETH researchers at the Laboratory of Food Process Engineering of Professor Erich Windhab.

Saffron from Spain is one of the world's most superior varieties, but the majority of this product which is labelled and exported as such originates in other countries. Scientists from the Czech Republic and Spain confirmed this false labelling after analysing 44 commercial products. By using a new technique based on each type of saffron's unique chemical 'fingerprint', the scientists have proved that over 50% of the samples were fraudulent.

The crimson stigma of the saffron flower (Crocus sativus) is one of the oldest and most expensive spices in the world, particularly those varieties which are internationally recognised for their quality, such as saffron grown in Spain. This has led to the fraudulent labelling of non-Spanish saffron.

A new study reveals that prairie voles console loved ones who are feeling stressed - and it appears that the infamous "love hormone," oxytocin, is the underlying mechanism. Until now, consolation behavior has only been documented in a few nonhuman species with high levels of sociality and cognition, such as elephants, dolphins and dogs. Prairie voles are particularly social rodents, causing them to be the focus of many studies. This led James Burkett and colleagues to explore their potential for empathy-motivated behaviors. The researchers created an experiment where relatives and known individuals were temporarily isolated from each other, while one was exposed to mild shocks.

Human genome editing for both research and therapy is progressing, raising ethical questions among scientists around the world.

On the one hand, technical advances could enable doctors to modify germline genes - those contained in sperm and eggs - to prevent offspring from developing devastating genetic diseases. At the same time, the potential for gene editing to alter human inheritance also alarms many scientists, prompting some to argue that germline editing should be prohibited indefinitely.