Health Net agrees to settle rescission lawsuitsThe Woodland Hills insurer will pay as much as $14 million to close the books on litigation over the canceling of health policies. Woodland Hills insurer Health Net has agreed to pay as much as $14 million to settle a pair of lawsuits brought on behalf of 800 former policyholders whose coverage was dropped after they submitted substantial medical bills.
Country music is becoming the main event at Walnut CreekTime-Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek is a finalist for venue of the year, as presented by the Academy of Country Music.
This Is Your Brain on EnvyBy MICHELLE SCHLIEF, ABC News Medical Unit
Morrissey’s indie tune about envy -- “We hate it when our friends become successful†-- was inescapable if you listened to college radio in the ‘90s. The object of jealousy in the song has never been revealed, but a new study from Japan sheds some light on just what might have been going on inside the protagonist’s brain, and what might be happening to each of us when we become possessed by the green-eyed monster of envy.
Dr. Hidehiko Takahashi and his colleagues report today in Science on a series of experiments in which they peered into subjects’ brains using fMRI to see what happened when they induced the feeling of envy in them.In the study, the participants were made to feel envious of fictitious characters. This elicited activity in an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which has been previously linked to socially painful experiences.
But Dr. Kristina Visscher, a researcher in the department of psychology at Harvard University, said not so fast.
“[Pain] is by far not the only thing that changes activity in this region,†she said.
She pointed out that other researchers have found this area “lighting up†under all kinds of circumstances, including when subjects were thinking about religious experiences, their political leanings, physical movement, optimism and making mistakes.
Just what this part of the brain does is a matter of intense scientific debate. One could argue that under certain circumstances, any of these activities can be painful. Finding out you’ve made a mistake can certainly wound your pride, after all. But it is clearly starting to look a little less like a spot in the brain that just lights up when we’re in physical pain or emotional distress.
However, said Visscher, "The idea that the brain might treat abstract social experiences and concrete physical experiences similarly would not be surprising."
For example, one recent paper from Dr. Nicole Speer, formerly of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington University, found that when we read a narrative story we literally run through mental simulations of the experiences we’re reading about, activating the same brain regions that we would if we were actually participating in the real-life version of the activity.
So maybe THAT'S why listening to Morrissey always makes me a little mopey.
Scientists unravel genetic code of the common cold
Human rhinoviruses categorized into 15 distinct branches that evolved over time Scientists have unraveled the genetic code of the common cold -- all 99 known strains of it, to be exact.
DR-CONGO: How Many More Will Be Raped?UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 (IPS)As people around the world celebrate their loved ones on Valentine's Day weekend, activists are working to ensure that the ongoing horrors of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are not forgotten.
