World Vignettes

Tackling kids' painSYDNEY: Adults in pain from medical procedures are often given a shot of pain-killing drugs. But when it comes to childre...

Tackling kids8217; pain

SYDNEY: Adults in pain from medical procedures are often given a shot of pain-killing drugs. But when it comes to children, Australian doctors are getting creative. Story-telling, toys and crayons are being used to control pain for young children who have to undergo repeated invasive procedures, said Matthew Crawford, Pediatric Anesthetist at Sydney Children8217;s Hospital. 8220;We get them to imagine places they like to be, to draw things and to tell stories,8221; Crawford told the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Conference. 8220;Children are different from adults because they can8217;t grade pain: It either hurts or it doesn8217;t,8221; he said. 8220;This made children, particularly those aged between about three and six, treatable by distraction techniques.8221; Crawford said many children treated by these techniques are cancer patients who may have had samples of fluid extracted from their spine or bone marrow, time and time again for testing.

Focus on pleasure

NEW YORK:Rats going through nicotine withdrawal showed a brain reaction similar to what8217;s seen in amphetamine and cocaine withdrawal, which might help explain nicotine craving in people who8217;ve quit cold turkey. The finding might also help scientists develop better ways of treating the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, such as depression, anxiety, irritability and craving, all of which interfere with attempts to kick the habit. The study focused on brain circuitry that produces pleasure from activities like eating and sex. It found that during nicotine withdrawal, this 8220;reward8221; system became harder to turn on, just as previous studies had found for withdrawal from other drugs.

Down comes Mir

MOSCOW: Russian space officials will gradually begin lowering the orbit of the Mir space station next month, part of a year-and-half-long process for bringing it down, a senior flight controller said on Friday. Space officials had said previously that they would begin altering the orbit of Mir this month as theybegan preparing to discard the twelve-year-old space station around the end of 1999. But deputy mission control chief Viktor Blagov said the manoeuvre will take place only after the US space shuttle Discovery takes home NASA astronaut Andrew Thomas, who is currently on Mir with two Russian cosmonauts.