In a list of the most dangerous jobs in the world, ‘Ebola researcher’ must surely rank near the top. But if new research is anything to go by, it may soon fall by several places. An international team of scientists have recently found a way to neuter the virus, making it easy to study without risking your life. The altered virus looks like Ebola and behaves like Ebola, but it can’t kill like Ebola. It should make studying the virus easier and most importantly, safer.

The Ebolaviruses and their cousins, the closely related Marburg family, have a chilling and deserved reputation. In some outbreaks, 90% of those infected die from massive blood loss. There is no approved antiviral