A rare skin disease that leaves victims with red, scaly flesh mottled with tiny patches of normal pigment just might hold the secret to curing other genetic disorders, scientists say.

Called “ichthyosis with confetti” because of a random sprinkling of normal skin cells, the disease is so unusual it might affect only “a couple dozen” people worldwide, said Dr. Keith Choate, a Yale University dermatologist and research scientist.

But the strange ailment may one day show scientists how to silence certain genes that cause disease, said Choate, who with colleagues reported findings in the latest issue of the journal Science Express. In effect, the confetti gene double-crosses the disease gene, forcing it to reverse itself to good health.

“One could envision dealing with other conditions caused by dominant gene functions like cancer and imagine taking the defective copy and causing the disease to go away by the same mechanism,” Choate said.

First, though, a little about ichthyosis. Named after the Greek word for fish, ichthyosis is usually characterized by the development of extremely thick, scaly skin, or, sometimes, very thin skin. It can lead to severe medical problems like calorie loss, water loss, overheating, blistering and psychological issues related to disfigurement and skin color changes. About 16,000 babies are born who either have or will develop the general condition, far more than ever develop the confetti variety.

But it’s the “confetti” in ichthyosis with confetti that intrigued one of Choate’s Yale mentors, Dr. Leonard Millstone, who, Choate recalled, “called me over and said ‘You should see this patient, see what’s happening.’ Practically before his very eyes, he saw a white spot developing."

In a study released last week, Choate and colleagues described how they unlocked the secret. In some skin cells, an entire chunk of chromosome 17 that contains the defective gene inherited from one’s parents is replaced from the spot of the bad gene all the way to the end of that arm of the chromosome. The replacement section contains a good copy of the gene, also inherited from parents.

Patients with the confetti tend to grow more and more normal patches of skin the longer they live, but while those patches could be called “cured,” and while the increase in normal patches does lessen ichthyosis symptoms somewhat, patients still have ichthyosis and Choate said the benefits are “relatively mild.”

Still, Choate said the strange disease offers hope that somehow, other genetic diseases – such as muscular dystrophy or cancer – may be forced to become self-correcting, too. One day, that could be a big payoff of the research.

Do you grapple with an annoying skin issue? Do tell.

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Air travel throws your taste buds completely out of whack, some experts say. It's because of the dry air in the airplane cabin, and at least one airline specially selects wines with our warped sense of taste in mind.

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Cry me a river and chances are it'll be germ free.

Tears aren't just for telenovela actresses, departing baseball managers (I'm talking about you, Lou), and Brett Favre's annual retirement cry.They do far more than lube your eyeballs, a fact illustrated by Saeed Khan, a researcher at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Ark.

Khan, who is presenting his results Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, wanted to test how well lysozymes, an enzyme found in human tears and other biological fluids that attacks the cell walls of bacteria, could resist anthrax. Egg whites, like tears, contain lots of lysozyme. Sure enough, when Khan and his colleagues infected egg whites with an anthrax stand-in, the lysozyme in the egg white killed the spores. Spores were also inactivated when Khan added lysozyme to ground beef and milk.

And it's not just tears that can do that, says Alexander M. Cole, associate professor at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida. "Pretty much every wet area of your body" has antimicrobial powers, he explained.

Rambo mucus in our airways dismantles germs. (In fact, back in 1922, Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered penicillin by accident, also got lucky when a drop from his runny nose fell into a bacteria-filled Petri dish and killed off the germs around it.)

Semen may be transportation for sperm, but it also contains peptides, especially one called cathelicidn, that mow down bacteria in its path so those sperm have a clear swim to the egg.

Sweat does more than keep you cool; it contains another peptide called dermcidin that attacks bacterial membranes. It's effective against staph, for example.

In addition to nasal fluid, Cole has extensively studied the cervical-vaginal mucus of the female reproductive tract and found that it isn't just there to provide a happy environment for sex. It includes antimicrobial peptides that help fight off bacteria and viruses like HIV.

Perhaps most surprisingly, even human urine appears to have germ-killing powers. There is evidence, Cole explained, that it contains a peptide called human beta defensin 1 that may help keep a urinary tract infection from reaching the kidneys.

Best of all, Cole said, body fluids don't fight germs in just one way. Various peptides attack different vulnerabilities so that germs cannot adapt and become resistant, the way they can to manufactured antibiotics. That's why body fluids from people and animals is now being researched in hopes of making new antimicrobials.

We are assaulted by germs constantly. In fact, it's estimated our bodies have more germs on them and in them, than we have cells. Sometimes, of course, those defenses are overwhelmed and we wind up doubled over on the bathroom floor but it's time we give a little respect to all those sticky, runny, watery emissions we like to pretend don't exist.

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Writes Bill Briggs: You jump, yelp and quake. You hug tighter and breathe harder. Then, you giggle it all away.

The hormonal storm that cascades through your body before, during and after a frightfully fun moment is – as haunted house artist Timothy Haskell likes to say – “a beautiful pathos.”

“It’s a complete journey from anticipation to anxiety to experiencing the fear and having the adrenaline rush to coming down afterward,” says Haskell, an Off-Broadway director whose latest ghostly creation, “Nightmare: Superstitions,” runs Sept. 24-Nov. 6 in Manhattan. “Fear and hilarity are very close to each other. It’s the same (neuro)transmitter that’s being engaged. A lot of times, you’ll get startled and find the very next reaction is to laugh.”

Crazy for coasters: For some, track goes on forever

Which explains why so many of us purposely love to be scared: It’s an internal roller coaster ride that delivers us safely back to reality. Whether bungee-cord jumping or watching horror flicks, we’re drawn to the chemical surge of controlled danger.

Adding to the blood-curdling bliss: your body can’t discern between the intentional thrill you ignite by, say, parachuting for sport and the anxiety that grips you if you stumble into true peril.

“People think this is all in your head. No, it’s all in your kidney rind,” says Dr. Christoph Leonhard, a psychologist and professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

In an alarming situation, your adrenal glands (which sit atop your kidneys) dump the hormone epinephrine into your blood steam. That gush triggers a series of bodily reactions – the “fight or flight response” – including a burst in heart rate and breathing.

“The very exciting experiences and the anxious experiences are difficult to differentiate just on a physiological level,” Leonhard says. “So if you’re going bungee-cord jumping or if you are having a panic attack driving over a big bridge, biologically speaking, it’s almost identical.”

After the terror lifts, your body unleashes a compensatory hormonal wave – noradrenaline – to restore heart and breathing rates. What you feel then is “that peaceful, relaxed, deeply pleasurable state,” Leonhard says. “People get addicted to that as much as they get addicted to the excitement.”

Our joy-jolt is further revved by watching others freak out. Due to biological differences, some of us simply startle easier – “just like,” Leonhard says, “it takes more beer to get some people drunk.”

Typically, those of us who seek the big scare like to do it in packs. Psychologically, Leonhard says, we enjoy trying on roles that come with actual creepy situations: We become the caretaker or we allow someone to protect us. We bond.

People often attend Haskell’s “Nightmare” events in groups and because, he says, they “share communally.” (The backdrop for his 2010 haunted house: a 35-minute stroll through a former New York City insane asylum).

“They like being the safety buffer as well as being the person who needs a safety buffer.” Haskell says. “People like to bring their girlfriend and boyfriend – whoever they have to hold onto.”

Roller coasters, scary movies, bungee jumping -- what's your favorite way to freak yourself out? Tell us about your favorite adrenaline source in the comments.

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Bill Briggs writes: When Nadia Cwiach speaks, no puffs of smoke emerge with her words. No plumes of flame or popping red embers streak from her lips. Just the faint haze of a Big Apple accent.

But inside Cwiach’s mouth, it’s pure hell: a fiery, scalding sensation coats her tongue, cheeks and day and night. For two years and four months, Cwiach says her entire oral cavity has felt a little like she’s munching on a blazing book of matches while swigging a nice toasty glass of gasoline.

“There are just days where you’re really miserable,” says Cwiach, meaning that some Mondays may feel hotter in there than some Tuesdays. But pretty much every day, it’s a scorcher in there.

Maybe the only soothing thing about Cwiach’s condition is that it has, according to the Mayo Clinic, an official name: Burning Mouth Syndrome. While the Mayo folks are on the case, they can’t figure out the cure – much less the source for the constant internal inferno. By some estimates, it affects about 4 percent of U.S. adults, typically women 50 and older.

According to MayoClinic.com, sufferers are afflicted with a heated, chronic pain that coats their tongue, gums, lips, cheeks, and the roof of their mouth. For some people, the sting increases as the day grows longer. The “primary cause,” the clinic adds, “isn’t known.”

Cwiach, 64, has no family history of the symptoms and received her diagnosis after her doctor, a gastroenterologist, used blood tests and a battery of other exams to rule out every other possible disease, bug or virus.

“They think it’s possibly hormonal, and it strikes mostly postmenopausal women,” said Cwiach, who lives in Stamford, Conn. “So after hearing that, I asked: is there really anything else that women (my age) need?”

From blazing mouths, sarcasm flows.

You’re probably thinking – what about ice cubes or popsicles? She’s tried them. Sucking on those helps “just for that moment.” She’s switched to additive-free toothpastes. She has swished a medicine cabinet full of mouth washes to try to douse the fire. She’s tried eating bland foods. She’s tried eating spicy foods.

“It’s all the same,” she says.

She’s theorized that maybe stress is a factor. But she recently had some tense days at work and the condition didn’t seem to burn any hotter. So Cwiach doesn’t believe her environment is fueling the problem. And her sleeping has not been interrupted.

“When it’s just there and burning, you almost get used to it. You forget about it.”

She’s learned two other bizarre elements about the syndrome. For many people, she says, the condition lasts for about seven years.

And in the final stage, apparently, “it leaves you as abruptly as it comes.”

So she’s looking at 2015, and hoping that’s the coolest year of her life.

Have you ever had a mysterious illness? Tell us about it in the comments.

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If you thought bed bugs were bad, consider this: Researchers are warning about the dangers of another invasive critter, the so-called “kissing bug,” which strikes at night and bites your face.

Properly known as triatomines, the long-feelered bugs common in the U.S. southwest are known to carry the parasite that causes Chagas disease, a potentially deadly illness with roots in Latin America. Fortunately, cases here have been rare, but that hasn’t deterred the bugs from causing damage. Most recently, they’ve been linked to dangerous allergic reactions in patients who wake up with swollen-shut eyes, itchy welts and blistered skin, struggling to breathe.

A recent study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases advises doctors to be on the lookout for these severe allergic reactions, which can be as serious as any bee sting in people who are sensitized. In one instance, a 46-year-old woman in the foothills of San Diego woke up scratching her leg and quickly found that she was too weak to walk and short of breath. She had to be rushed to an emergency room and treated for anaphylaxis. Other victims have lost consciousness and had seizures.

The culprit? The small brown blood-suckers attracted by light to human homes. They creep in unnoticed only to emerge at night and use scent and heat to track down humans. The reason they’ve been dubbed “kissing bugs,” is from their common habit of biting the face, which is often exposed during sleep.

Data is sketchy, but researchers at the University of Arizona’s “Kissing Bug Project” report that there were 669 exposures to kissing bugs reported to U.S. poison control centers between 2000 and 2005. They figure the number of love bug bites was actually much higher because of under-reporting.

There’s not much to do about a kissing bug bite, except to avoid it. Pest control is a good idea, experts say. This is one smooch nobody wants to wake up with.

Ever had a bug bite you on the face? Somewhere worse? Tell us about it in the comments.

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Randy Dotinga writes: If you're looking for a hook-up, a few drinks can suddenly make other people seem more attractive -- and receptive -- than they actually are, according to two new studies that help explain the "beer goggle" effect.

First, a suds-soaked fog diminishes a guy’s ability to detect facial symmetry, a crucial component of what we think of as human beauty. When this sense is dulled, an average-looking face may seem like it belongs to a hottie, suggests research on drunk college kids in the journal Alcohol.

To make matters even worse, another study shows liquor makes guys more likely to misinterpret a friendly female glance as a bold come-on.

"The average guy tends to perceive more women as being sexually interested after a few drinks and be more likely to make mistakes about what a woman feels," says study co-author Teresa Treat, an associate professor at the University of Iowa whose finding appears in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

On the other hand, Treat found that alcohol does not affect a man's ability to differentiate between modest clothing (jeans and a sweatshirt) and come-hither attire (a short skirt and tight top).

The researchers came to their conclusions after doing their best to approximate boy-meets-girl-over-drinks scenarios without actually going to a bar.

In the experiment, 59 young men looked at photos of young women. (Ah, the sweet life of a research subject.) Previously, men and women had deemed the photo subjects to be sexually interested or just friendly and more provocatively dressed or less provocatively dressed.

The male subjects looked at the photos while sober and then after they'd downed vodka cocktails and gotten a bit shy of legally wasted. While the study design didn't allow researchers to come up with specific statistics, it's fair to say that the drinks moderately disrupted the men's ability to interpret sexual signals, Treat explains.

This matters because misinterpreting a woman's signals "could be associated with men making an advance that's not reciprocated," Treat says. That could lead to damaged egos or worse, like date rape, she says.

What's going on? When people drink, they struggle to interpret things that are subtle and demand more thinking, says Robert F. Leeman, an associate research scientist at Yale University. It appears that sexual signals -- confusing in the best of times -- fit into those categories.

What to do? Women who want to just have a good time -- and not go home with a guy -- would be smart to dress conservatively, says University of Texas psychology professor Kim Fromme. "That's the more obvious cue."

In other words: Make sure you send signals that can be picked up even through a boozy blur.

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In Michelle Philpots' world, Bill Clinton is still president, everyone keeps telling each other that "life is like a box of chocolates" and no one can get Ace of Base's "The Sign"out of their heads. That's because Philpots is stuck in 1994.

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That year, Philpots suffered traumatic brain injuries in two car crashes. Since then, she's been unable to form new memories; every morning, her husband has to convince her that they're married, using a photo album as proof -- a real-life version of the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore movie "50 First Dates." She can remember everything that happened to her until 1994, but nothing after that -- not even her 1997 marriage. (She started dating her husband before her injury, but doesn't remember marrying the guy.)

Philpots, 47, who lives in Spalding, England, has an extreme case of anterograde amnesia, a condition that inhibits the brain's ability to record any new memories. Other amnesiacs can't recall older memories, a condition called called retrograde amnesia. Amnesia is a handy plot device in pop culture, and memory experts say real-life "Memento" cases are rare, but they do exist.

No case of amnesia is exactly alike, says Dr. Ronald Petersen, a Mayo Clinic neurologist and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. Some forget faces, some forget their native language, some "forget" their entire personality. But each case is caused by a head injury, a neurological disease or, in some cases, years of drug or alcohol abuse. Petersen, who did not treat Philpots, explains that the type of memory loss depends on what region of the brain is impacted; for example, retrograde amnesia generally happens when damage is done to the brain's temporal lobes, and both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, like Philpots has, can happen when the hippocampus is injured. But it's still not understood what makes someone's memory "reset" every 30 seconds or, in Philpots' case, every day.

Petersen has also treated several patients with transient global amnesia, a temporary but terrifying form of memory loss that strikes seemingly at random. "A person is walking out in the street and all of a sudden he develops this," Petersen explains. No head injury, no evidence of disease or drug abuse -- but for as long as 24 hours, he can't form new memories or recall old ones.

Other famous amnesiacs include Clive Wearing, an English musicologist, who has suffered from both retrograde and anterograde amnesia since an infection attacked his brain in 1985. His memory essentially "resets" itself every seven to 30 seconds. There's the strange case of Benjamin Kyle, who was found behind a Richmond Hill, Ga., Burger King. He was lying unconscious behind the fast-food joint, with evidence of three blows to the head. When he came to, he had no idea who he was, couldn't remember his own name and didn't even recognize his own face. (He came to be called "BK" after the restaurant where he was discovered, which evolved to Benjamin Kyle. Despite DNA searches, his real identity is still a mystery.)

Do you have friends or family who've suffered from forms of memory loss? Tell us about how they've coped in the comments.

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Chris Tachibana writes: Could a giant, spit-sniffing rat save your life? Maybe — they can be better than humans at diagnosing tuberculosis.

A pilot program in Tanzania is using trained rats to smell TB in sputum samples. Up to 1,000 samples a week are collected from local hospitals by APOPO, a nonprofit that also trains rats to sniff out landmines. Although the TB samples have already been checked by a human under the microscope, the rat pack’s sniff tests have improved disease detection by 44 percent because the clever rodents often find TB that was missed.

While the World Health Organization estimates that 2 billion people around the world are infected with TB, it can be hard to detect under a microscope, particularly in those who are also HIV positive. That’s where the giant rats can help. They might turn out to be just as accurate at finding TB. They're low-tech and could screen for TB in resource-limited countries. They’re also faster than the standard microscope test, says Bart Weetjens, APOPO founder. A human with a microscope can process 40 samples a day. A rat can do 40 in seven minutes, he says.

Weetjens, who was inspired by a childhood pet rat, started APOPO in the 1990s to train giant pouched rats, which are native to sub-Saharan Africa, to detect land mines in the region. The rats were so good at sniffing out hidden bombs that in 2003, APOPO started training their nosy little friends to smell TB in a spit sample. Currently working with a team of 30 rats, APOPO is now optimizing their unique program, so in the future, it might be used in other communities.

Rats aren’t the only creatures making medical diagnoses. Dogs can also be trained to find disease in humans, like smelling urine samples for signs of cancer. (One little terrier recently chewed off his owner’s big toe after sniffing out a dangerous diabetes-related infection.)

But in a nose-to-nose contest, Weetjens says rats are better than bomb- or disease-sniffing dogs.

"Whatever dogs can detect, rats can detect equally well," he says, noting a rat can be trained for one-fifth the cost. "They're more calm than most small animals, very intelligent and social, and they love humans."

Rats’ reputation as disease-carrying vermin is exaggerated. Weetjens says that in 12 years of working with the giant rats, no one at APOPO has gotten sick from them. The rats themselves are resistant to TB and many tropical diseases. "They're really lovable creatures," says Weetjens. "Like a pet you can work with."

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Randy Dotinga writes: If you're a football fan, you've probably seen a team "ice" an opposing kicker in the final moments of a close game by taking a timeout at the last possible second.

The idea is to throw the kicker off his stride by disrupting his concentration and giving him more time to worry about how the entire game rides on his ability to get the pigskin between those uprights.

A new study says icing in the NFL is actually a pretty good strategy, providing even more support for a counterintuitive rule of thumb (and foot): Sometimes, extra time to prepare is the last thing people need when they're under pressure.

"The more time people have on their hands, the more opportunities they have to think too much. And taking too much time to attend to every detail of what you are doing can muck up your performance," says Sian L. Beilock, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago.

That seems to be what happens to kickers in the NFL when they're iced right before a crucial kick.

Researchers looked at 273 "pressure kicks" in the last moments of close games from six NFL seasons. They found that kickers successfully kicked field goals more than 80 percent of the time when they weren't delayed by a timeout by the opposing team. But the success rate tumbled to two-thirds when they were iced, said the report, which appears in the September issue of the journal The Sports Psychologist.

There may be more going on than just overthinking. "It's possible that physically preparing for the kick is taxing," says study lead author Nadav Goldschmied, a professor of psychology at the University of San Diego. "You're getting ready, you're under pressure, you're focused, and then you stop and then you need to do the preparation phase again."

Beilock, the University of Chicago professor, says the lesson of the study -- be careful about taking too much time here to think and analyze -- will likely apply to "any situation where there is pressure to perform at a high level."

You can even apply this knowledge to give you a leg up in any sort of competition, says Beilock, author of the upcoming book "Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To."

If you can, she says, go first, "especially if your opponent has to wait around after you go before they can show their stuff."

Have you ever choked? Tell us in the comments.

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Some look like sausages, some look like Space Needles and others are just plain scary.

“My toenails have the dreaded fungus,” says Ann Wendell, a 51-year-old consultant from Seattle. “They grow in gnarly shapes and at odd angles like the petrified forest. My daughter is completely afraid of them. If I’m sitting next to her on the sofa without shoes, she’ll go and get a towel and throw it over my feet.”

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but the toes are often the ugly doormat on the back porch that nobody wants company to see. Even celebrities get busted for blisters, bunions, corns, or crusty toenails and podiatrists like Dr. Howard Dinowitz of Brooklyn say unsightly digits are one of his most common patient complaints.

What wins top spot in the ugly toe hall of fame?

“Hands down, fungus wins for ugly toes,” he says. “Fungus breaks the integrity of the outer lying nail, causing it to yellow, thicken and crumble. I’ve had people come in with fungus nails that have been untreated for 20 or 30 years. We have to use a drill to file them down.”

Both resistant and resilient, toenail fungus can affect one nail or all 10 and is usually inherited (thanks Grandpa!). It can also be triggered by trauma, such as dropping a 10-pound can of paint on your toe. “Once you break that keratin layer, the fungus will attack like little Pac-Men,” says Dinowitz.

Fungus may be foul but it’s hardly the only thing people hate about their toes.

Hammertoes and claw toes are another common complaint among patients, says Dinowitz. Both structural deformities, hammertoes and claw toes cause “knobbing” of the toe knuckles that are both painful and unsightly.

“They can make shoes bulge because they just stick up and don’t yield to the pressure,” he says. “They’re like bent knees.”

Bunions are another big toe issue (literally and figuratively) and are caused by an inflammation of the big toe joint.

Not all complaints are for structural or functional deformities, though, says Dinowitz. Some people just don’t like the way their toes are shaped, particularly young female patients who live for strappy sandals.

“A lot of my young female patients will complain about their short fat pug toes,” he says. “And there are some doctors who do ‘toe tucks’-- liposuction to take excessive fat out of short fat stubby toes.”

Ode to toes: They sure can come in handy

Dinowitz says he doesn’t perform or recommend toe tucks or other cosmetic toe surgery, though.

“Your feet are workhorses,” he says. “And any kind of attempt at beautifying the most functional, beat-up part of the body never really works long term.”

Does your brother have bunions? Your wife have webbed feet? Tell us about them in the comments. Or better yet, send us pictures of your big (and little) toe complaints!

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Did your grandpa ever tell you that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, a watermelon would start to grow in your stomach? This guy's got a better story than that. Ron Sveden, of Massachusetts, apparently swallowed a pea that went down the wrong pipe a few months ago -- and then the pea sprouted and started growing. In his lung.

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When Daniel Bocchino was 16, he started stretching his ear lobes, expanding them until he had an inch-wide hole in each lobe. But by the time he was 19, he was so over the piercing trend known as ear gauging.

He removed the thick plugs from his lobes and slathered the holes with all kinds of weird ointments and creams, hoping the stretched-out skin would just shrink back up. But that's not how it works -- once that hole is stretched any wider than 6 millimeters, there's no going back.

Bocchino, who's now 20 and lives in Hackettstown, N.J., ended up just walking around with a drooping, flappy hole in each ear for six months, until finally seeking advice from a plastic surgeon, Dr. Brian S. Glatt.

Glatt, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Morristown, N.J., says he's seeing more people -- mostly young people, and mostly men -- who started gauging their ears as teenagers and are now joining the military, seeking a professional job or, like Bocchino, are simply over the fad, and are trying to figure out how to fill that hole back up.

“There is no established way to do it, and each case is different,” says Glatt, who sees about one young guy a month who regrets the hole in his ear. “It’s like a puzzle; you have to figure out how to put these kids back together properly.”

Glatt says he essentially has to reconstruct the whole earlobe. He cuts around the hole -- "you're almost taking out the core," he explains. Then he slices the earlobe into two pieces, trims away excess skin and sews the pieces back together. He says the surgery leaves a scar down the earlobe right to the edge of the lobe.

He adds: "A lot of these kids are smokers, and smokers tend not to heal as well, just to add insult to injury."

To distract from the scar, some of his patients have repierced their ear, which he says is safe to do.

But regauging their lobes is out of the question: "They'd run the risk of literally tearing their earlobe apart. It wouldn't withstand the stretching, and they'd have two little pieces." Eww.

The surgery takes about half an hour per ear, and costs anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000, which Bocchino paid for himself with the money he makes as a tattoo artist. He says he's happy about the results -- the worst part of it all was probably telling his parents he regretted gauging his ears in the first place.

"They were like, we told you so," he says.

Do you have any piercings or tattoos you regret? Tell us about them in the comments.

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Bill Briggs writes: Light sleepers, insomniacs and groggy zombies of all stripes, take a healthy gulp of your triple-shot espresso and rest easy.

Dr. Jeffrey Ellenbogen knows of what you dream: a full night of slumber uninterrupted by noise. You crave blissful bedtime silence – at least inside your head. And he’s working on it.

Ellenbogen, chief of the sleep medicine division at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a team of researchers believe they have cracked a brain-wave code that predicts how and why some people are more easily stirred from slumber by bumps in the night while others can saw logs through clanking garbage trucks and snoring partners.

In short, he found, if you’re not sleeping well, you can blame your spindles. That’s what doctors have dubbed quick bursts of brain activity that our thalamus gives off every 10 to 60 seconds as we sleep. For years, scientists have theorized that these spindles may be signs that the thalamus, essentially a sleep shield, is working to block sounds or other sensory information, helping to keep us in dreamland.

Ellenbogen’s study, published in Tuesday’s issue of Current Biology, discovered that the more spindles people have, the better they sleep.

Msnbc.com PhotoBlog: Oh, to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime

As we age, we produce fewer spindles. It’s not known why some of us generate more sleep spindles than others. Perhaps its genetics or diet or simply that we grew up in noisy (or quiet) homes.

“But for someone who has insomnia or pain or anxiety or a sleep disorder, when they’re woken they can’t fall back to sleep. They may be up for an hour,” said Ellenbogen, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

This fresh research, Ellenbogen hopes, could spur future studies into behavioral techniques, drugs or devices that may enhance our sleep spindles. The idea is to try and keep people asleep naturally if they’re confronted with routine nighttime noises – and to let them maintain otherwise healthy sleep, he said.

For the rest of you insomniacs and dozy commuters, think of it this way: You can still count sheep. Because from sheep comes yarn – and yarn is wrapped around spindles. Now sleep tight.

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Attaining an even, all-over tan is a futile effort, no matter how much you sunbathe buck naked. The reason? Your booty.

Turns out, your hindquarters just don't tan as well as the rest of you. Instead, your derriere is more likely to simply turn red - probably not the look you were going for.

LiveScience reported on the new research conducted by scientists from the University of Edinburgh who were trying to learn why different skin cancers tend to be found in different parts of the body. Researchers exposed the back and the behinds of 100 volunteers to UVB rays, the type that cause sunburns. The findings? Some parts of your body respond differently to the sun, hence the red hiney.

But regardless, you probably shouldn't be soaking up the rays anyhow, either under the sun or in a tanning booth. The rate of skin cancer is on the rise, including melanoma, the deadliest form. Last year, international cancer experts called tanning beds as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas.

If that's not enough to instead send you to the self-tanning lotion, do it to avoid having a baboon bum.

What's your weirdest or worst sunburn? Tell us about it in the comments or, better yet, send us a photo. We'll publish some of the best pictures.

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Linda Carroll writes: When it’s time to discuss his favorite things, President Barack Obama favors the left. Hand, that is.

Scientists have discovered that those who are left-handed, like Obama, tend to use that hand to gesture when they’re talking about things they feel positive about, and their right hand for things that are negative. For right-handed people, it’s the opposite.

In a study published this month in PloS ONE, researchers examined tapes from the final presidential debates from 2004 and 2008 to see if they could spot a right/left bias in the hand gestures of the candidates. As it turns out, both candidates in 2004 were righties, while in 2008 they were both lefties.

Sure enough, the politicians unwittingly communicated their feelings about a topic by the hand with which they gestured while speaking. So, when Obama launching into an enthusiastic discussion about the benefits of his health insurance plans he would use his left hand. If the topic was the war in Iraq, he’d gesture with his right hand.

The opposite was true of right-handed George Bush – positive words were emphasized with right handed gestures, negative ones with left handed movements.

Associating good things with the side of your dominant hand extends beyond just gestures. Researchers found that if you’re right-handed you’re more inclined to think that in general things on the right are good, while left oriented stuff – people, images, whatever – is bad. (The converse is true for you lefties out there.)

In one experiment, study volunteers were shown a drawing that depicted a group of space aliens sitting side by side. On average, righties concluded that the aliens on the right end of the picture were smarter, happier, more honest and more attractive than those on the left. Lefties liked the extraterrestrials on the left better.

“Overall, the data support the idea that people associate good things with the side of the body they can use most fluently – dominant is fluent, and fluent is good,” says the study’s lead author Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

It’s a good example of how our bodies influence the way we think without our ever knowing anything about it, says Diane Halpern, a professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College.

We’re thinking this right/left thing could be a quick and dirty lie detector. Let’s say your boss is about to evaluate your work -- you might want to pay close attention to which hand is moving as she talks.

What body language do you think reveals the most? Tell us in the comments.

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Linda Carroll writes: Your teen has been begging for months to get a tongue piercing. All her friends have them and she can’t understand why you are such an old fuddy duddy, steadfastly refusing to let someone stick a stud through her tongue. OK, it’s icky, but you’re starting to lose ground with that argument.

Researchers to the rescue. A new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics, shows that tongue studs cause a gap-toothed grins.

Apparently, kids like to play with their tongue studs, often pushing the barbell shaped ornaments back and forth against their front teeth. In the case described in the new study, a young woman managed to create a significant space between her upper teeth -- called a diastema -- by periodically wedging the thin part of the barbell between them and wiggling it around over the course of seven years.

“It is a basic tenet of orthodontia that force, over time, moves teeth," explains the study’s lead author, Dr. Sawsan Tabbaa, an assistant professor of orthodontics at the University of Buffalo School of Dental Medicine.

The new report comes as no surprise to Dr. Brian Martin, a chief of the division of pediatric dentistry at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Over the years, Martin has seen plenty of similar piercing related spaces develop in his hip young patients. But that’s not the worst scenario, he says.

“I’ve seen patients fracture their teeth by repeatedly clacking the piercing against them,” says Martin, “Or sometimes a kid will break a tooth when she inadvertently gets the piercing between her teeth as she bites down on some food.”

Ultimately, the 26-year-old woman in the study got her teeth fixed with braces. And there’s the rub -- and your new best argument. Is it worth being like all the other kids if you’re going to wind up with braces or a broken tooth?

Ever been injured by your tongue piercing? Other hazards of being hip? Share in the comments.

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While we are on the subject of toes … that is, the ones not chewed off by a Jack Russell Terrier (see yesterday's gruesome tale): After being tied up and held at gunpoint by a burglar, an Atlanta woman used her toes to type an instant message for help.

Using her feet, Amy Windom managed to open her laptop bag, navigate to AOL Instant Messenger and peck out the message “CALL 911 POLICE” to her boyfriend.

"It took a little while to work it out, but I used the right toe on the touch pad to move the mouse around and then I could right or left click with the right toe and then I used my left foot to clamp down on the power cord and hit the various keys as best I could to type out the messages," Windom told The TODAY Show.

Video: Tied-up woman saved by nimble toes

What mad skills do your toes have? Could they get you out of a pinch? Can they give someone a pinch? Can you pick up an object? Pick your nose? Share your toe triumphs in the comments.

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We've done stories before on dogs sniffing out diseases their owners didn't even know they had. Now a little terrier named Kiko has one-upped all of them: He went ahead and performed surgery. Kind of.

According to a bizarre story reported in The Grand Rapids Press, Kiko smelled an infection in his owner's right big toe and set about "amputating" it. Which in doggie terms, of course, means he ate it. All the while, Kiko's owner, Jerry Douthett of Rockford, Mich., lay passed-out drunk in his bed. (We told you it was bizarre.)

Video: Thanks to 32-ounce margarita, Jerry Douthett says he felt 'no pain'

Douthett awoke to find a bloody stump where his big toe used to be, and he and his wife rushed to Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Mich. There, they discovered Douthett actually had type 2 diabetes and was suffering from a dangerous infection in his big toe. Doctors finished the job Kiko had started, and amputated what was left of his toe.

Douthett's wife, Rosee, a registered nurse, had actually suspected her husband had diabetes and insisted he get checked out. But before he did so, he had a few beers. And then a few margaritas. After that, he went home, passed out, and Kiko got to work. Weird story, but Bruce Rossman, a media relations manager at Spectrum Health, confirms that it's true.

Do you credit your own pet with saving your life? Tell us about it in the comments.

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Linda Carroll writes: Men who want to be more magnetic need only don an article of red clothing, scientists now say.

Researchers from the University of Rochester and other institutions around the globe have discovered that the color red makes a man more attractive and sexually desirable to women, according to a report published this month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

For the new study, researchers showed young women a series of photos of men. In some pictures, men wore shirts or other pieces of clothing or stood against a red background. In others there was no red. Consistently women were more attracted to men associated with red. What made the results especially believable was that they were the same, whether the women came from England, Germany, China or the United States.

The color’s charm can be traced to its ability to make men appear more powerful, says the study’s lead author Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. “We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder,” he explains. “And it’s this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction.”

As far as Helen Fisher is concerned, the call of crimson goes a lot deeper than that. These kinds of signals are wound tightly into our DNA, says Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of “Why Him? Why Her?”

In the animal kingdom, red is attractive because it’s a sign of high testosterone, Fisher says. Certain monkeys develop a redder rump – and higher levels of testosterone - as they climb the social ladder. Male robins with the reddest breasts, caused by high levels of the hormone, are the most attractive to females of the species because these males are the most dominant and the most likely to be able to protect the nest and secure food for those hungry hatchlings.

Modern women may not want the man with the most testosterone. But we’re still unconsciously wired to be attracted to the outward sign of it – red color.

“I’d say we’re soft-wired, rather than hard-wired, to find males wearing red attractive,” Fisher says. “What I mean is, we have a huge cerebral cortex. So, if a man walks into a bar wearing a red sweater and has messy jeans, bad teeth and a bad haircut, we’re not going to be fooled by the sweater.”

But it works the other way around, too -- men are more attracted to women in red, a 2008 study shows.

Is there a color you find hot on the opposite sex? Tell us about it in the comments.

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If anyone ever needed a reason to use roll-on deodorant instead of a spray, here’s one:

A 14-year-old girl in Switzerland gave herself a case of first-degree frostbite by spritzing spray deodorant way too close her skin. And when a 45-year-old friend tried it because she didn’t believe the teenager, the adult wound up with frostbite, too.

The unusual cases of "cold burn" were described this week in the journal Pediatrics, where surprised-sounding scientists verified that, yes, aerosol sprays can cause freezing injuries.

It works like this: Pressurized gas in a can cools rapidly when it’s sprayed. At the same time, propellants used to push out the gas have low boiling points. That means the temperature can drop rapidly, from a cozy 69 degrees Fahrenheit to a frigid 5 degrees Fahrenheit within 5 seconds.

Frostbite occurs when skin starts to freeze, usually at temperatures between 14 degrees Fahrenheit and 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

So when someone like the 14-year-old Swiss girl conducts what she described as a “test of courage,” spraying deodorant within 2 inches of her hand for 15 seconds, the result was a big, red patch of frozen skin.

It’s not the first time this has happened. An 8-year-old boy suffered a cold burn after spraying himself with toilet cleaner at close range. Another young boy developed second-degree frostbite on his mouth, including lips and tongue, after inhaling an aerosol propane propellant in an effort to get high. And two teen girls at campout burned their ankles and forearms after spraying deodorant from a distance of less than half an inch.

The study authors warn sternly against fooling around with aerosol sprays. But they also conclude that anyone silly enough do it probably won’t listen: “In a majority of cases, the patients were obviously aware that such improper use would cause skin damage.”

Have you ever conducted a dumb experiment on your body? Share in the comments section.

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