SCIENCE

The children who were allowed to watch television during the procedure reported experiencing the least pain. The pain scores of those who were not distracted were about three times as high as those recorded by children who watched cartoons, the researchers found.

"TV watching was more effective than active distraction," they wrote in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, adding that the findings do not mean parents are useless in such situations.

"Children who are experiencing pain in health-care settings of course need the supportive presence of a parent to help them cope effectively," they wrote. "The children will recall that they were not left alone in a stressful occasion."

-- Rob Stein

Oceans' Bacterial Barometer

The types and numbers of bacteria in the sea are specific to local conditions and can be used to monitor changes in the oceans over time, researchers are reporting this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In a four-year study, scientists from the University of Southern California and Columbia University took monthly samples from the Pacific Ocean near USC's Wrigley Institute marine laboratory on Catalina Island and determined that microbes in the ocean are not interchangeable, but instead thrive under particular circumstances at specific times.

"I could tell you what month it is if you just got me a sample of water from out there," said Jed Fuhrman, a USC marine biologist and the paper's lead author. "They're just like animals and plants in the way they function in the system. Each one has its own place."

The researchers used statistical methods to correlate the bacteria counts with the Wrigley Institute's monthly measurements of water temperature, salinity, nutrients and plant matter. More than four times out of five, they could predict the makeup of the bacterial population based on the conditions of the water.

Fuhrman said scientists may be able to use bacteria to assess how the oceans are changing and to evaluate whether ocean models are accurate. By relying on bacteria, he said, "we have some hope of predicting how changes are going to happen."

-- Juliet Eilperin