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How you praise a young child may affect the way he or she faces challenges later, a new study suggests. Praising effort may boost motivation more than praising brains or talents, the authors said. The study included 53 children, ages 1 through 3. Parents were videotaped interacting with them at home for 90 minutes. Researchers analyzed the praise that parents gave. They divided it into “process” praise and “person” praise. Process praise focuses on how the child does something. For example, the parent might say: “You really worked hard on that.” Person praise is directed at a child’s personal qualities. So a parent might say: “You’re really good at that.” Boys on average received more process praise than girls. Researchers came back to the same families 5 years later, when the children were 7 or 8 years old.

A new antibiotic may treat skin infections as well as an older pill, a new study finds. The new drug, tedizolid, also did well against drug-resistant infections. It required fewer pills than the older drug as well. The new study included 667 adults. All had cellulitis or other wound infections. People were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group received tedizolid once a day for 6 days. The other got a standard antibiotic, linezolid, twice a day for 10 days. The two drugs worked equally well. Side effects were similar in both groups. New antibiotics are needed because so many types of bacteria now resist older ones. In this study, about one-quarter of the infections were caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These bacteria are difficult to kill. Linezolid is one of the few antibiotics that works.

Four people died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning during the weekend in cars where a tailpipe was blocked after a major snowstorm. The Associated Press (AP) wrote about the deaths, which were in the Boston area and in Meriden, CT. Two children were hospitalized in Boston after a similar incident. They are expected to recover, AP said. Parts of New England and New York received 2 to 3 feet of snow February 8 through 9. In all, the storm was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, AP reported. They included heart attacks while shoveling snow, at least one of them fatal. A New York man died after his tractor drove off an embankment while he was plowing snow, AP said. Boston police warned that people should clear the snow around the tailpipe of a car before starting the engine. Otherwise, deadly fumes back up into the car.