While Leyner was lying around nursing his injured knee and Goldberg was trying to console his hungry newborn at 4 a.m., we both switched on our DVD players. Leyner opted for "The Matrix Reloaded," and Goldberg chose the oldie but goodie, "Foul Play," with
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Baseball hero Roger Clemens swore under oath during a grueling Congressional hearing Wednesday that he didn't use steroids during his phenomenal baseball career. "I've been accused of something I'm not guilty of," he defiantly told committee members. His words may have denied the claims by his former personal trainer, but his body was saying something else. At least that's what one body language expert thinks.
During the 4½-hour hearing, Clemens was agitated, he didn't make direct eye contact with the committee members and he even stumbled over the name of Brian McNamee, his chief accuser.
"The body doesn't lie, the voice doesn't lie," Lillian Glass told NBC's Peter Alexander Wednesday during the hearings. "When you look at Roger Clemens, you see a lot of lip licking… It's very consistent. He's very nervous….You see a lot of wrinkling of the forehead. He looks down. He's disconnected. That makes you question what's really going on with him."
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| Jonathan Ernst / Reuters |
| Former New York Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens couldn't keep his tongue in his mouth while testifying before Congress. |
Glass was all praise for McNamee, who sat at the same table.
"McNamee was forward. He was ready. He was receptive … not defensive. He looked right at the people who were questioning him. He wasn't nervous." WATCH THE VIDEO
Glass claims that when people are lying they move their shoulders, clench their jaws, lick their lips and shuffle their feet.
But does showing anxiety really go hand-in-hand with lying? It's popular to talk about a person's shifty eyes or to assume that when someone is fidgety or nervous that they're not telling the truth. Dr. Simon Rego, licensed clinical psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York isn't so sure.
"Certain movements or gestures like those may be more of an indication of anxiety or nervousness than lying per se," says Rego. "This type of lie detection seems analogous to polygraph tests. They don't really detect when someone is lying as much as when they are anxious."
Other experts say that tone of voice is more revealing than eye contact, although people who are telling the truth often stumble over their words. It's the practiced liar who tends to be the smooth talker, they say.
No one would accuse Clemens of being a smooth talker under questioning. His career is on the line, and as he said during the hearing, "I'm never going to have my name restored."
Still, it's not only the body language experts who didn't believe Clemens. Just 1 in 5 msnbc.com readers think the Rocket is telling the truth.
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By Melissa Dahl, health writer
It's a gross-out skill little brothers seem to be born with – a knack for turning their eyelids inside out, effectively freaking out all the ladies in their lives.
A fun, freaky trick, sure. But what if you couldn't help flipping your lids? Some eyelids among us have minds of their own, flipping and flopping inside out whenever they please.
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Those with a condition called floppy eyelid syndrome have lids that lack a normal amount of elastin, making the thin skin super stretchy. Grossing out their peers is totally out of their control – their eyelids can turn inside out spontaneously. In some cases, the upper lid can stretch all the way to the eyebrow, and both the upper and lower lids can be pulled forward as much as two centimeters. (Doesn't seem like very much? Try seeing how far yours will go.)
And although it sounds weird enough to make a really freaky YouTube video, experts say the condition isn't as rare as you might think.
"It's actually very common – you probably have met somebody with it," says Dr. Sean Blaydon, the president of the Austin Ophthalmological Society. Blaydon is also a plastic surgeon at Texas Oculoplastic Consultants in Austin, Texas, who says he regularly repairs wayward eyelids.
But many people don't realize they have floppy eyelids. It's most common in obese, middle-aged men, especially those who have obstructive sleep apnea. One clue you might have flippy lids is chronic pink eye, which your lids may pick up by flopping open on your pillow as you sleep. (Another clue is if your eyelid is touching your eyebrow as you read this.)
So, score one for Mom? Can your face really freeze that way? Not so much, says Blaydon. No amount of eyelid flipping can cause floppy eyelid syndrome.
As you were, lid flippers.
Can you flip your eyelids? Tell us!
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By Linda Dahlstrom, health editor
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Andy Warhol. David Guest. Donald Trump. The "Cat Woman" Jocelyn Wildenstein.
With a bar that high for quirky-looking characters, New Yorkers aren't easily shocked. Many people escape to New York to express their individuality.
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Update with the 'Blue Man'
Feb. 6: Paul Karason talks about the friendly reactions he received from New Yorkers, his test results and returning to "normal" life. Today show |
So it's no surprise that the city's latest darling is Paul Karason, aka the Blue Man.
"You rock!," said one visor-wearing middle-aged maven who saw him on the street, a moment captured by video for the "Today" show.
Karason's skin turned permanently and decidedly blue about a decade ago after he tried treating a skin condition on his face with a silver preparation. He's also been drinking colloidal silver, which is liquid in a silver suspension, for about 14 years, he says. Over time, it's collected in his skin and turned him blueberry.
In January, he appeared on the "Today Show" with Matt Lauer and Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who encouraged him to see a doctor to find out how his internal organs are faring. He did just that, visiting Dr. Seth Uretsky at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York. He got a clean bill of health. Mostly. The good doctor reserved final judgment until the heavy metal tests come back.
What surprised the reclusive Karason, who says he doesn't trust doctors, is that he liked Uretsky. Even more astonishing to him was how much New Yorkers are embracing him as a celebrity.
"I'm drawing these little crowds everywhere I go!" he said. "… The people are very positive."
His fiancée, Jackie Northup says, "He's come out. He's not such an introvert anymore. ... He loves New York!"
Karason said he plans to return home to the Fresno area of California and look for a job. They'd moved to Northern California from Oregon a while back hoping to blend in. ("He hasn't gone out so much at home," Northup says.)Â
But instead, maybe he should consider moving to the Big Apple where he can bask in his newfound celebrity.
As the song goes, These little town blues, are melting away. I'll make a brand new start of it in old New York.
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By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner
Dr. Billy Goldberg:Â
Do you remember the 80's Missing Persons song, "Walking in L.A.," where they sing "nobody walks in L.A.?" Well, Leyner walks in L.A. and was hit by a car this week. After he realized that it wasn't being driven by someone with a "dubious disease" who was trying to strike him down after our last blog entry, I tried to get him to discuss a topic for this blog. A discussion of the health benefits of walking might be particularly appropriate at this time. I am not a gym person and have always argued that walking is what has kept me fit. Yeah, on a rare occasion you can trip and fall or get hit by a distracted driver, but a simple stroll is much less risky than so many other activities. Well, Leyner had other thoughts…
Mark Leyner:
I'd been in L.A. – Culver City to be exact – for about three days screening a movie I wrote along with Jeremy Pikser and John Cusack, called "War, Inc." Ever since I arrived in L.A., I'd had this nagging sense of dread. Now, I know that I have an unusually acute and chronic presentiment of impending apocalypse, but over the past few days it had a sharp edge of specificity to it. So I'd been walking around Culver City with this foreboding that something was going to fall from the sky and kill me – figuratively, and literally. Unlike most people here, I prefer walking to driving. In fact, I LOVE walking. Walking seems to be unanimously frowned upon in L.A. People out here give you strange befuddled looks when you ingenuously suggest walking to an In-N-Out Burger joint that's so close you can see it down the road. "No, no, no," the concierge will admonish. "You don't want to walk all the way over there. Let me get a car for you." A car? The place is three blocks from here. Now I finally understand. Those traffic signals that tick down the seconds you have to walk across the street aren't there for the benefit of the pedestrian. They are there to calibrate and heighten the driver's video-game adrenaline rush as he perfectly times the moment he'll stomp on the gas so as to brush the billowing shirt of the hapless fleeing pedestrian who's attempting to cross.
 Dr. Billy Goldberg:Â
 I didn't share Leyner's sense of dread. I was at home with my family and 10-day-old newborn girl, watching the Super Bowl. I did, however, stuff myself with ribs and beer which got me to worrying about my own personal health. At least I avoided drinking any Coke or Pepsi since I just read in the British Medical Journal that the consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks and fructose is strongly associated with an increased risk of gout in men. Having gout would get in the way of my walking. Despite Leyner's perilous assessment of being a pedestrian, the health benefits of walking are very clear. There is incontrovertible evidence that regular physical activity contributes to the prevention of cardiovascular disease and that it is associated with a reduced risk of premature death. Walking has also been shown to help breathing, fight depression, improve immunity and also control weight. There are dangers associated with all physical activity, but that shouldn't stop you. And don't think that you can just walk from the parking lot to Denny's and consider it exercise. The recommended amount of walking to get those health benefits is 10,000 steps a day. You don't have to stroll down the street counting like an obsessive compulsive child. Wear a pedometer or assume it's equal to about five miles. It sounds like quite a hike but it adds up over the course of a day. I am lucky on two fronts. I live in New York, the region of the country with the highest walking rates. I also work in the ER and studies have been done with ER doctors wearing pedometers and we can sometimes walk 3 to 4 miles in an 8-hour shift.
Mark Leyner:
    Whatever! I was hit by a car. Struck down, suddenly and violently, the impact throwing me about 10 feet. It was astoundingly abrupt and yet had that strange quality of suspended time familiar to anyone who's ever been in an accident. I immediately thought of my daughter Gaby, hoping that nothing had happened to me that would prevent me from joyfully spending all the precious moments of our lives together. I stood up, stunned. My bag and my laptop case and my cell phone and car keys were scattered on the street. The driver rushed out of her big bright yellow car, her face obscured by huge bright yellow sunglasses. One of my knees buckled, bending too far in a direction it obviously shouldn't have been bending. The other knee was bleeding and bruised, as was my elbow. But my head hadn't hit the ground. All told, I'm extremely lucky. EMS arrived, examined me and determined that I was essentially in one piece.
Some guy who'd witnessed the accident came over to me later and said that only in California is it actually safer to be inside a hurtling automobile than simply strolling around. "I hear that, dude," I said, giving the guy a fist-bump and limping off.
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