In Brief

By Alain L. Sanders

STRAP THAT SUCKER Frustrated because your preschooler is still sucking his or her thumb at night? Ask your dentist how to use a technique outlined in the journal Pediatric Dentistry safely. The method involves wrapping an Ace bandage (snugly, but not too tightly) around your child's elbow, from mid-arm to mid-forearm, to create a gentle tension that pulls the thumb from the mouth as the youngster relaxes and falls asleep. The approach, which has shown a 60% rate of success, requires that your child be willing to try it, and that he or she be periodically rewarded.

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE Though some brain functions tend to diminish with age, the loss may not always place older folks at a disadvantage. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., asked a group of 256 subjects to observe a series of letters, flashed one at a time on a computer screen, and hit a target button whenever an A was followed by an X. Younger adults noticed early in the test that most A's were followed by an X, and became primed to hit the target button whenever they saw an A--which resulted in errors. Older adults were less quick to jump to conclusions and made 2% to 5% fewer errors.

OLYMPIC GOLD A Harris Interactive poll reveals that U.S children ages 6 to 17 prefer the Olympic Games to any other major sporting event. More kids say they like the Olympics than the Super Bowl, the World Series, the soccer World Cup and even the youth-oriented X Games. Because a Summer or Winter Olympics comes only once every two years, the pollsters believe that enthusiasm for watching the Games is passed down as a family activity by parents or older siblings.

--By Alain L. Sanders