The .Plan

We may be seeing a first glimpse of South Africa revisiting its longstanding policy barring foreign physicians from working within its borders:

The health department has appointed over 500 foreign medical doctors to public health sector posts over the past 16 months, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Thursday.

In a written reply to a question in the National Assembly, she said altogether 507 doctors — predominantly from developing countries — were on record as having been placed in specific institutions around SA since November 2006…

Commenting on Tshabalala-Msimang’s reply, DA spokesperson Mike Waters called for a policy review.

On the one hand Tshabalala-Msimang claimed to enforce a policy of not allowing health professionals from other developing countries to work in South Africa, and on the other hand this policy was blatantly ignored in practice.
–South African Press Association, “Hundreds of foreign docs working in SA”, March 27, 2008

A new study by some German researchers provides the first in vivo evidence that release of endogenous opioids occurs in fronto-limbic brain regions after running, and further that this is correlated with self-perceived euphoria. (Too bad this doesn’t really happen for me.)

Dr. Boecker and colleagues recruited 10 distance runners and told them they were studying opioid receptors in the brain. But the runners did not realize that the investigators were studying the release of endorphins and the runner’s high. The athletes had a PET scan before and after a two-hour run. They also took a standard psychological test that indicated their mood before and after running.

The data showed that, indeed, endorphins were produced during running and were attaching themselves to areas of the brain associated with emotions, in particular the limbic and prefrontal areas.

The limbic and prefrontal areas, Dr. Boecker said, are activated when people are involved in romantic love affairs or, he said, “when you hear music that gives you a chill of euphoria, like Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.” The greater the euphoria the runners reported, the more endorphins in their brain.
–Gina Kolata, “Yes, Running Can Make You High”, New York Times, March 27, 2008