Today's Globe: ER visits, concussion tests, teen pregnancy, chaos response, scientific wanderer

Thousands of newly insured Massachusetts residents are relying on emergency rooms for routine medical care, an expensive habit that drives up healthcare costs and thwarts a major goal of the state's first-in-the-nation health insurance law.

In Health/Science:

A small but growing number of Massachusetts schools require a new kind of screening for its student athletes: It uses what look like video games to measure an athlete's baseline brain skills - memory, problem solving, reaction time - before the season. That way, after an injury, a retest can accurately reflect whether the brain is back to normal, allowing a safe return to competition.

"When it comes to sexuality and a myriad of other transitional health issues, developing teens must see their pediatrician as their personal doctor - not their mother's or father's," Dr. Victoria McEvoy writes.

Confusing times make for dangerous times, suggests new research. The possibility of an economic meltdown is bad enough. Worse might be a hasty response born of little more than the powerful human need to impose order - even false order - on a riotous world.

L. Mahadevan, a 43-year-old professor at Harvard, studies seemingly simple, everyday questions - such as, how does fabric drape? paper wrinkle? paint dry? -and hopes that they may lead to new places in science.

Also, why is there no vaccine against infectious mononucleosis and where do math symbols such as + and - come from?

Plus, the sweet smell of science and not-all-bad ulcer-causing bacteria (second item).