Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown rode into office two years ago as an everyman with a pickup truck, vowing to "take back the peoples' seat" held by Democrat Ted Kennedy for nearly half a century. Here on Cape Cod, Brown's breezy persona persists as he strolls down Main Street, shaking hands, posing for pictures and playfully shouting to a passerby to keep her eyes on the road. But the junior senator's attitude belies a stark reality: He is in the midst of a contentious race with a liberal icon who recently won the state Democratic convention with a record 95.7% of the delegate vote. Elizabeth Warren, President Barack Obama's high-profile consumer advocate and a Harvard Law School professor, is seeking to take back the seat Brown snatched from the Democrats in a special election in 2010 after Kennedy's death.

FINANCIAL

MONEY-Health-Care-Costs

Health care reform will help millions more Americans get insurance. But experts say the Affordable Care Act itself won't stop the cost of health care from continuing to rise and consumers from paying bigger bills.

MONEY-Doctors-Employment-Survey (with art)

The solo doctor is a vanishing breed. Squeezed by high costs and shrinking insurance reimbursements, independent doctors are closing up shop or going to work at hospitals or bigger group practices where they aren't directly responsible for overhead costs.

MONEY-New-Ultrabooks-Tablets

Thin," "touch-enabled," "light-weight," "beautiful" and "appealing" aren't adjectives usually associated with personal computers -- but get ready. A new wave of ultrabooks and tablets coming this fall are about to change how the world perceives the PC.

MONEY-Housing-Delinquencies

The mortgage market appears to finally be stabilizing -- as long as you ignore loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Increasingly, FHA-insured loans are falling into foreclosure or serious delinquency, moving in the opposite direction of loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or those held by banks, which are all showing signs of improvement. And taxpayers could ultimately be on the hook for FHA's growing number of troubled mortgages.

MONEY-Libor-Analysts

As the scandal grows over banks that fixed a key bank rate, a few financial analysts and media groups can say they told us so four years ago.

MEDICAL

MED-Pets-May-Make-Children-Healthier

Children who are born to a family with furry pets seem more able to ward off certain illnesses.

MED-Less-Sitting-May-Lead-to-Longer-Life (with art)

What would happen if the entire population of adults in the U.S. reduced the amount of time they spent sitting or watching television? Researchers, whose work is published in the British Medical Journal Open, say Americans may live longer.

MED-Elderly-Access-to-Mental-Care (with art)

Baby boomers in need of mental health and substance abuse services may have a hard time finding health professionals to provide that care unless the treatment system is revamped, according to a new study from the Institute of Medicine.

MED-Sexonomics-Erotic-Capital (with art)

Madonna's got it. So do George Clooney, Tina Turner and Robert Redford. These celebrities are certainly good-looking, but they also possess what sociologist Catherine Hakim has dubbed "erotic capital" -- a term that describes a certain je ne sais quoi that includes, but isn't limited to, sexual attractiveness.

MED-Uncanny-Valley-Robots (with art)

What do zombies and androids have in common? They're almost human, but not quite. That disconnect is creepy, in a way that scientists are searching to understand. The uncanny valley is the idea that as a robot's appearance becomes more and more humanlike, we don't always respond to it more positively. Rather, there's a point on the scale between robot and human where we are repulsed. If it's mechanical but not entirely human, a robot seems disturbing. Why would that be? It would make sense that as human likeness increases in a robot, so would our comfort with it. But on a graph showing that relationship, there's a "valley" where this familiarity dips down into creepiness, and then comes back up again with more human characteristics. You may have experienced feeling this while watching animated movies that incorporate humanlike forms. It's also the reason that you might get freaked out by clowns or by photos of people with extreme plastic surgeries who don't look quite real anymore. Our brains come to an impasse when we see something that resembles a member of our species but just doesn't make the cut.

TECH

TECH-Internet-Down-Eagleman