In an effort to address the growing problem of health insurance fraud around the state, the California Assembly recently passed bill AB 2138, which will increase the amount given to agencies responsible for investigating bad faith disability claims and other types of insurance fraud. Under the measure, the amount paid by health and disability insurers to investigate fraud would increase from 10 cents per insured person to up to 20 cents per insured. The additional funding would allow district attorneys' offices around the state to investigate and prosecute insurance fraud ...

Several high profiles news stories in the past few months have upped the ante in a growing national campaign to combat synthetic marijuana and other "designer drugs." While a handful of cases have featured graphic and sensational behavior, against a national backdrop, problems associated with synthetic drug use have remained a relatively minor blip on the radar screen. Yet, media attention on an issue that it's easy for politicians to be "tough on" can quickly focus the public dialogue. In Illinois, that focus has played out in the form of a new synthetic ...

It can be challenging to move past the end of a marriage. Likely, you'll be feeling a range of emotions, and will have to deal with significant life changes. Your financial future is one of the utmost long-term concerns after divorce. Two incomes have become one, and one household has become two; resources will be stretched thinner. However, while financial stability is an important issue after divorce, it can be addressed, with the proper planning, in a straightforward manner. Establish Your Own Economic Presence, Plan Ahead, Build Credit and Get Professional Assistance Certain ...

Jumeirah Group, the global luxury hotel company and member of Dubai Holding, recently hosted its global brand ambassador, golfer Rory McIlroy, at the Jumeirah Grand Hotel Via Veneto in Rome. The Jumeirah team in Rome treated Rory to an old-fashioned tour of The Eternal City on a classic Italian scooter. Rory's day in Rome included stopovers by must-see tourist areas, all located within short distance of Jumeirah Grand Hotel Via Veneto, such as the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and Villa Borghese, where Rory had a chance to hit a few golf balls. A ...

Kuoni and the UK's largest healthcare charity Nuffield Health have selected six individuals to journey to radically different parts of the world as part of a unique study called 'The Holiday Health Experiment'. The experiment aims to better understand the health impact of different types of holiday on the wellbeing of the body and mind. 2,845 Brits entered The Holiday Health Experiment from April to June 2012. Before, during and after the trips all six individuals will undergo a variety of medical and psychological tests to look at the effects 'everyday life' has on ...

Why man has miscalculated wisdom education. Religion took the lead on wisdom and the religious scholars concluded that wisdom is from God. He 'gives' wisdom to whosoever He chooses. So wisdom is considered something that the chosen 'have'. Science followed the clue from religion and went about trying to 'give' wisdom by teaching wisdom. Students ended up having the knowledge of wisdom. Having the knowledge of wisdom did not make much of a difference in the student becoming wise. So wisdom education has remained more or less a failure to the extent that now hardly any ...

The highlight of Nicaragua's participation in this year's August edition of Sourcing at MAGIC will be a special, one-hour seminar titled "Nicaragua's Competitiveness as a Footwear Producer", which will showcase why Nicaragua has become an increasingly attractive footwear production platform in the region. The presentation will be at the Cultural Center on the show floor on Tuesday, August 21st from 3:30 - 4:30pm. The seminar will include presentations by Javier Chamorro, Executive Director of PRONicaragua, and Matt Priest, President of the Footwear Distributors ...

Next week, the legal team at the Law Offices of Joseph M. Lichtenstein will once again be taking on a complex case involving medical malpractice. Filing the case next week, their firm will be working to represent a family who is claiming they have been victimized by a mismanaged breech presentation that occurred one week prior to their expected delivery date. A breech presentation occurs when the child is entering the birth canal with their buttocks or feet first - this can severely complicate the entire birthing process. Per the claim, the physician negligently behaved ...

Instant Offer is currently being operated in a limited geographical area and will be closely monitored before potentially being rolled out more widely across the UK later in the year. Instant Offer is aimed at consumers who want to sell their car quickly and conveniently, at a fair price. The user enters details about their car and its condition on Autotrader.co.uk to receive an online offer. If they accept the offer, their car is inspected by an approved dealer to ensure it matches the description online, before the final offer is confirmed. Once the sale is agreed, ...

SALT LAKE CITY – Using advanced computer simulations, University of Utah College of Pharmacy researchers have produced moving images of a protein complex that is an important target for anti-cancer drugs. This advancement has significant implications for discovering new therapies that could attack cancer without damaging the DNA of healthy cells, according to an article published July 31, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers used high-performance computing technology to demonstrate that a protein complex called LSD1/CoREST undergoes ...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) new low-cost device for dismantling dangerous pipe bombs may look like a tinkerer's project, but that's no accident. The Semi Autonomous Pipe Bomb End-cap Remover (SAPBER) is unassuming in appearance, but sophisticated enough to preserve the forensic evidence needed to track down the perpetrator. "From ten paces away, you might mistake the contraption for a pressure washer," says S&T Program Manager Christine Lee. "But step closer and you'll find an ingenious device bristling with ...

The forests of the coastal regions from California to British Columbia are renowned for their unique and ancient animals and plants, such as coast redwoods, tailed frogs, mountain beavers and the legendary Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch). Whereas Bigfoot is probably just fiction, a huge, newly discovered spider is very real. Trogloraptor (or "cave robber") is named for its cave home and spectacular, elongate claws. It is a spider so evolutionarily special that it represents not only a new genus and species, but also a new family (Trogloraptoridae). Even for the species-rich ...

Insomnia sufferers in England could have greater access to successful treatment, thanks to a training programme developed as part of trials of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In Britain, people report having insomnia more often than any other psychological condition, including anxiety, depression and even pain, according to the Office of National Statistics. Yet the only treatment offered in most doctors' surgeries is a course of sleeping tablets. "It is well known that sleeping pills can be ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (August 17, 2012) -- Mo Ehsani, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, has designed a new, lightweight underground pipe he says could transform the pipeline construction industry. Instead of conventional concrete or steel, Ehsani's new pipe consists of a central layer of lightweight plastic honeycomb, similar to that used in the aerospace industry, sandwiched between layers of resin-saturated carbon fiber fabric. In combination, these materials are as strong, or stronger, than conventional steel and concrete pipes, which ...

When uncoupling proteins are active, mitochondria produce heat instead of ATP. This may be useful under certain circumstances, such as when an animal is hibernating. But non-hibernating animals also have them. Particularly poorly understood is the uncoupling protein UCP2. Elena Pohl and colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, show that the protein occurs mainly in cells of the immune system. The group's highly provocative findings are published in the online journal PLOS ONE. Mitochondria represent the powerhouses of the eukaryotic cell. They ...

Santa Cruz, California—Scientists have sequenced the genome of one of the iconic Galapagos finches first described by Charles Darwin. The genome of the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) is among the first of a planned 100 genomes of vertebrate species to be sequenced and released by an international collaboration between the Genome 10K project and BGI. This finch genome, the first of the BGI-Genome 10K collaboration to be made available through the UCSC Genome Browser, represents both a scientific and a symbolic advancement, according to Duke University associate professor ...

New research, led by University of Warwick physicist Dr Kareem Osman, has provided significant insight into how the solar wind heats up when it should not. The solar wind rushes outwards from the raging inferno that is our Sun, but from then on the wind should only get cooler as it expands beyond our solar system since there are no particle collisions to dissipate energy. However, the solar wind is surprisingly hotter than it should be, which has puzzled scientists for decades. Two new research papers led by Dr Osman may have solved that puzzle. Turbulence pervades ...

Most people are not aware of the fact that 84% of the European crops are partially or entirely dependent on insect pollination. While managed honeybees pollinate certain crops, wild bees, flies and wasps cover a very broad spectrum of plants, and thus are considered the most important pollinators in Europe. The serious decline in the number of managed honeybees and wild bees reported in Europe over the last few decades has the potential to cause yield decreases with threats to the environment and economy of Europe. The future of the pollination services provided by bees ...

A large-scale survey of the mental condition of military personnel before, during and after their posting to Afghanistan has proved thought-provoking. In total, 746 Danish soldiers took part in the survey. The soldiers completed a questionnaire five times in all – before their posting, during their time in Afghanistan and three times after their return to Denmark. Professor Dorthe Berntsen of the Center on Autobiographical Memory Research – CON AMORE, Department of Psychology, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences, is responsible for the study, together with ...

Researchers in India have developed a total cholesterol test that uses a digital camera to take a snapshot of the back of the patient's hand rather than a blood sample. The image obtained is cropped and compared with images in a database for known cholesterol levels. Writing in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics, N.R. Shanker of the Sree Sastha Institute of Engineering and Technology and colleagues describe how they have developed a non-invasive way to test cholesterol levels in patients at increased risk of heart disease. Their approach ...

TORONTO, Aug. 17, 2012--When members of the public participate in research studies, they are often given incentives – such as cash or gift cards for food – as compensation or reimbursement for their time and effort. Not so for Canada's prison population. A new analysis shows that there is inconsistency in how and when incentives are used for research participants under criminal justice supervision. Of the provinces, territories and federal government, only two jurisdictions have written policy around the use of research incentives, according to a national study led by ...

Whether a material conducts electricity without losses is not least a question of the right temperature. In future it may be possible to make a more reliable prediction for high-temperature superconductors. These materials lose their resistance if they are cooled with liquid nitrogen, which is relatively easy to handle. An international team, in which physicists of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart played a crucial role, has now discovered that this form of superconductivity competes with charge density waves, i.e. with a periodically fluctuating ...

VIDEO: A Spanish researcher has proposed human, agricultural and livestock waste, such as urine, as a way to absorb CO2. Click here for more information. The ocean, the ground, rocks and trees act as carbon drains but are far from places where greenhouses gases are concentrated, especially CO2. A Spanish researcher has proposed human, agricultural and livestock waste, such as urine, as a way to absorb this gas. Absorbing the large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Two new species of owls have been discovered in the Philippines, and a Michigan State University researcher played a key role in confirming their existence. The discovery, which is featured in the current issue of Forktail, the Journal of Asian Ornithology, took years to confirm, but it was well worth the effort, said the paper's lead author Pam Rasmussen, MSU assistant professor of zoology and assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology at the MSU Museum. "More than 15 years ago, we realized that new subspecies of Ninox hawk-owls existed ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A penny-sized rocket thruster may soon power the smallest satellites in space. The device, designed by Paulo Lozano, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, bears little resemblance to today's bulky satellite engines, which are laden with valves, pipes and heavy propellant tanks. Instead, Lozano's design is a flat, compact square — much like a computer chip — covered with 500 microscopic tips that, when stimulated with voltage, emit tiny beams of ions. Together, the array of spiky tips creates a small puff of charged particles that ...