Fewer women give birth on Halloween than on Valentine's Day, finds a new study. But this may not be a mere calendar coincidence. Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health suggest that pregnant women appear to be swayed by the cultural symbolism of the two holidays -- skeletons versus cherubs --  and this might influence their baby's arrival date.

They speculate that mothers-to-be may avoid delivering on the October holiday associated with death and witches. But scientists suspect that women have a more favorable view of Valentine's day, which is linked with love and romance, and may try for a Feb. 14 delivery.

Researchers raise the possibility that pregnant women may have some control over the timing of childbirth. Their findings suggest that a spontaneous birth (giving birth naturally) may be less spontaneous than doctors previously thought.

"The positive connotations of Valentine's Day may increase a pregnant woman's will to initiate birth and the negative connotations of Halloween may precipitate her will to resist giving birth," write the researchers. In other words, maybe a woman's mind is consciously or unconsciously influencing her hormonal mechanisms, and telling her body to speed up or slow down her baby's birth.

In the study, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, researchers reviewed more than three million U.S. birth records. They looked at the number of babies born in the two-week period surrounding Halloween and Valentine's Day between 1996 and 2006, and considered the mother's delivery method.

Researchers selected cultural holidays with widespread participation, like Halloween and Valentine's Day, because unlike religious or national holidays, these would not affect hospital staffing rates. They found that births -- both scheduled and unscheduled -- increased on the holiday associated with hearts and flowers but dropped on trick-or-treat.

On Valentine's Day, they observed a 3.4 percent increase in induced births, a 3.6 percent lift in spontaneous births, and a 12.1 rise in cesarean deliveries compared to the seven days before and after the heart-themed holiday. 

And there was a noticeable decline on Halloween. There was an 18.7 percent drop in induced births, a 16.9 percent dip in cesarean deliveries, and a 5.3 percent fall in spontaneous births compared to the other days in this two-week timeframe.

During this 11-year period, a woman's odds of giving birth on Valentine's Day went up by 5 percent overall, but it went down by 11.3 percent on Halloween. Although researchers admit they don't know the exact mechanisms behind this birth-timing pattern, they suspect that psychological factors and cultural beliefs can impact when women go into labor.

Of course, birth records don't reveal what may have been going on in couples' minds or lives nine months earlier.

Halloween and Valentine's babies, let's hear from you. Is it fun to share your birthday with pumpkins and costumes or hearts and romance? Others who have holiday birthdays feel free to add your comments.

Related:

• Three days after birth, newborn has teeth. What?!
• 'Baby fever' is a real thing -- and not just in women
• Cravings for baby powder, and more tales of pica

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Alberto Pizzoli / AFP - Getty Images file

Let this be a lesson to us: A good dose of caffeine may improve editing.

You probably count on your daily jolt of caffeine to wake up your brain and stay sharp all day long. But downing that coffee, tea, cola, or chocolate bar may be giving you a leg up in another unexpected way: It can improve your proofreading skills, according to a new study.

Caffeine seems to enhance performance of some of the brain's complex processes that rely on the right hemisphere, such as extracting meaning from language that's written or spoken, says study author Tad Brunye, a senior cognitive scientist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Natick, Mass. "And you don't need excessively large doses to do so," he explains.

In the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, researchers asked 36 college students who consumed low levels of caffeine -- about a half-cup of coffee a day -- to do a "language task." The students were given 5 minutes to read a one-page news story, and needed to identify and correct as many spelling and grammatical mistakes as they found in that time.

Forty-five minutes before taking the proofreading test, students were randomly given a capsule containing one of four doses of caffeine: none, 100 milligrams (the amount found in 8-ounces brewed coffee), 200 milligrams (found in 16-ounces coffee), or 400 milligrams (found in 20-ounces of coffee).

In a second study, researchers repeated the same experiment with 38 college students who consumed higher levels of caffeine each day. The java junkies typically had at least 300 milligrams of caffeine daily, roughly three 8-ounce cups of joe.

Caffeine only seemed to make a difference in the student's ability to spot and fix "complex global errors." These were mistakes in subject-and-verb agreement (for example, billionaire inventor Tony Stark enjoy a lavish lifestyle) and verb tense (for example, customers were misled into believing they had got approved for low interest loans).

The low-caffeine crowd was best at finding and correcting these grammatical goofs at 200 milligrams of caffeine. But it took more in the highly caffeinated -- 400 milligrams -- to achieve the highest detection rates.

Interestingly, caffeine didn't affect the students' skill at finding and correcting misspelled words. And it had no effect on noticing mistakes in words that sound alike, such as weather and whether or seams and seems.

"Individuals who habitually consume caffeine on a daily basis are less likely to benefit from caffeine's performance advantages without upping the dose," Brunye says.

So if you're great at finding the grammatical mistakes that occasionally occur in Body Odd posts, we'll assume your caffeine has kicked in.

Related: 

• Coffee buzz may be all in your head
• Too much coffee makes you hear voices
• Coffee and doughnuts may give a brain boost

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That sinking feeling in your gut? Don’t worry: it’s probably appropriate for our times. It may be due to your foundering finances, your slippery hold on employment, or the sudden realization that you love “Glee” just a bit too much.

For the medical record, however, a nagging anticipation that something wicked this way comes is a listed warning sign for at least eight illnesses or conditions.

Heart attacks, aortic dissections, adrenal gland tumors, some seizures and severe allergic reactions all share one clairvoyant-sounding symptom: “an impending sense of doom.”

One form of epileptic seizure may offer the best case study to explain this amorphous, dark disquiet, this brand of bad-health ESP. That’s because these seizures – abrupt surges of electricity activity within the brain – occur in a lower, middle swath known to fuel this apocalyptic vibe.

“The temporal lobe involves the emotional circuitry of the brain,” says Dr. David Ko, chief of neurology and director of the EEG Lab at the Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center. “Some patients with temporal lobe epilepsy get this psychic or emotional component.

“They get this panicky feeling that something really bad is going to happen,” says Ko, who co-authored a recent article, that touched on this eerie symptom. “Some people have describe it as being like an impending sense of doom.”

Such seizures are not sparked by actual stimuli. And, he adds, they are far different from panic attacks – anxiety disorders that include feelings of approaching calamity but which typically peak after 10 to 20 minutes. Seizures sparked by temporal lobe epilepsy “have a discrete beginning and end, one or two minutes,” Ko says.

But why would heart attacks or instances of abrupt bleeding into and along the wall of the aorta (the main artery pushing blood out of the heart) lead to this same Doomsday sensation?

“If you’re having any chest pain, you get very anxious. The circulatory system is part of the (brain’s) emotional system,” Ko explains. “If you think you are having a heart attack, the heart starts racing, your blood pressure goes up.”

This sends neurotransmitters – chemical messengers -- surging toward receptors in the temporal lobe, igniting a vague but an urgent alarm: “Uh oh….”

Allergic reactions – including those caused by certain foods or wildlife stings – can similarly set off the body’s “fight or flight” neural-response, and light up those same communication pathways.

At least one famous work of literary fiction tapped into this irrational feeling of looming disaster, Ko notes. In his famous book, “The Idiot,” 19th century Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky created a main character who suffers from epileptic seizures.

“That character had that sense of doom,” Ko says. “Dostoyevsky is a well known person who had epilepsy. He wrote about his symptoms. And obviously, his work is very dramatic and (the general mood of his tales) is not a pleasant one.”

 Bill Briggs is a frequent contributor to msnbc.com and author of “The Third Miracle.”

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You know how sometimes everyone is terrible and everything is the worst and nothing ever, ever, goes your way?

Chill out. You’re probably just hungry. Or, rather, hangry.

“Hanger” -- that’s with the hard /g/ sound -- or "food swings" are silly terms used to describe the treacherous intersection where hunger and anger collide. Ever stagger through a terrible morning, only to find yourself in much better spirits after lunch? Then you, my friend, have been hangry.

The cause of your “mad”-ness? Low blood sugar.

Marjorie Nolan is a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. She explains that “hanger” isn’t just a ploy by crabby people to excuse their moods (and snag some snacks); it has a scientific explanation.

 “When [blood sugar] is low,” says Nolan, “the hypothalamus is triggered and levels of several hormones such as growth hormone, leptin and ghrelin are affected.  This imbalance then causes a shift in neurotransmitters and suppresses serotonin receptors.”

Serotonin is a hormone that helps regulate mood and appetite. Cut off your body’s ability to process it, and prepare for some mood swings. Anger and extreme frustration, Nolan says, are common responses.

This is not to say everyone who skips lunch will turn into The Hulk before dinner. Blood sugar has to drop pretty low (from a normal range of 70 to 100 milligrams per deciliter to a level below 55 mg/dL) before hanger-causing moderate hypoglycemia sets in. That takes several hours of not eating.

And, says Nolan, there are other factors that may make some people more susceptible to “hanger” than others.

“For individuals more prone to having low [blood sugar], symptoms tend to be more severe,” she explains. “‘Anger’ as a result of hunger is in part, personality based.  If you are someone who is more prone to feeling frustrated or ‘moody’ to other life situations you are more likely to have this reaction when hungry.” 

Outside stressors --like work or family issues-- can worsen the problem.

 “If you are already feeling on edge,” she adds, “chances are extreme hunger is going to personify this.”

In order to keep your blood sugar stable and ward off hanger, Nolan suggests eating a combination of protein and complex carbs every 3 hours. (Cheese and wheat crackers or hummus on pita will get the job done.) 

And remember, next time you feel inexplicably angry, treat yourself to a snack before blowing up. Your brain and your coworkers might thank you.

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The better you can forget, the better you’ll be able to remember, scientists now say.

To remember facts that are important in your life today, you have to be able to let go of information that you no longer need, says Benjamin Storm, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

“For example, if someone asks you who is the current Speaker of the House, you might remember Newt Gingrich or Nancy Pelosi,” explains Storm, co-author of a study on the subject published in Current Directions in Psychological Science. “That, of course, is incorrect. So you have to have a way of not thinking about Gingrich and Pelosi, so you can remember that the current Speaker is John Boehner.”

Your brain is stuffed full of information and for you to have important information at your fingertips -- or the tip of your tongue -- it has to forget facts that aren’t currently needed. It’s like your belongings: Important stuff you might store on your desk. Less important stuff you’ll toss up in the attic. You can get the stuff out of the attic if you really need it, but it’s harder to access.

To get a sense of how the brain forgets in order to remember, Storm set up some experiments. In one, volunteers were given a list of six words that were all related: a list of six fruits, for example. Then the volunteers were given a simple test in which the category was listed along with the first letter of three items followed by a blank to be filled in -- so you might see “fruits,” followed by an “o” for orange or an “a” for apple. Next the volunteers were given the same test, but this time with cuing letters for all six items.

The volunteers easily remembered the three items they’d originally been tested on. The other three were very hard to recall. Their memories of these items had been lost.

The experiment explains what happens when we get a new phone number, Storm says. Once you’ve learned the new number, it’s almost impossible to recall the old one. And that makes sense. Imagine how hard it would be if you remembered every single phone number you’d ever had.

As it turns out, some people are better forgetters than others, says Storm. And these people tend to be better at problem solving. Something about the way their brains organize information helps them to think, he explains. 

Are you better at remembering -- or forgetting? 

Related:

• Mind-blowing sex can actually wipe memory clean 
• Pill could erase painful memories, study shows
• Stuck in 1994, and more tales of extreme memory loss

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Tyra Banks says the stress from writing her new book gave her alopecia. What's behind the link between stress and hair loss?

Tyra Banks definitely has a lot on her plate, but she recently complained about having much less on her pate. The "supermodel-turned-mogul" just added "fiction writer" and "New York Times bestselling author" to her ever-growing list of accomplishments.

But banging out a book and running a multimillion dollar beauty, fashion, and entertainment empire reportedly took a toll on her in an unexpected place -- her scalp.

Banks let her hair down in a recent Wall Street Journal interview, confessing, "I got a little alopecia from the stress." The stress is the five years it took to write her newly released young-adult book, "Modelland" while juggling her other professional responsibilities. Banks prefaced her comment by admitting, "How can I say this without tearing up?"

We feel her pain, even though we suspect she could afford to hire a ghost writer to pen the pages.

Even so, losing the hair on your head -- whether it's temporarily or permanently -- is hard to do, even for the most beautiful and richest among us.

"Writing a book can definitely be a stressor that can lead to hair loss, or alopecia" says Orr Barak, MD, a dermatologist at Main Line Dermatology in Philadelphia. But in women with hair loss, doctors also have to rule out if the stressor is a thyroid problem or low iron levels. "While these are rarely the causes, it's more commonly an emotional stressor like Tyra is talking about," he points out.

Barak suspects Banks had "telogen effluvium," a kind of stress-induced hair loss.

Still, we needed to get to the root of her problem. Our "mane" question (sorry) was: Why does stress cause your tresses to fall out?

As Barak explains it, a normal head of hair spends 80 percent to 90 percent of its time in the growing phase of the hair cycle, known as anagen, and 10 percent to 20 percent of its time in the resting, or telogen, phase. (An exception to this is pregnancy when the hair cycle increases to 100 percent anagen, or growth.)

"When the body undergoes a stressor, the hair follicle is affected and a new equilibrium is set for the hair cycle," Barak says. The rate may fall to say, 60 percent of its time in the growing cycle and 40 percent in the resting phase. This down shift causes more hair to fall out, and you see more of it in your brush or shower drain.

Thankfully, shedding more hair than usual is often temporary. "When the body recovers from stress, hair will get back up to its normal 80 percent to 90 percent ratio of growth over time," notes Barak. We hope that's what happened to Bank's locks.

Have you noticed more hair loss during an especially stressful time? 

Related:

• Can hair really turn white from fright?
• Science of the silver fox: Why hair goes gray
• Your hair knows when you're about to have a heart attack

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When Baby Nesa Lopez was just three days old, her mom noticed something peculiar about her newborn: She had two lower front teeth.

"One of my friends told me that she thought I had glued teeth in her mouth at first," mom Sandra Vosburg, 20, told Tampa Bay Online. Vosburg and her baby daughter, who was born Oct. 4, live in Plant City, Fla. "Nobody believed me until I showed it to them, and I'm like, 'Wow, that is weird.'"

Actually, experts say, it isn't that unusual.

"Every pediatric dentist sees it," McTigue told the Tampa news site. He says it happens in one in 4,500 newborns. When it happens, it's normally the two lower front baby teeth, just like Nesa's two chompers, which are called neonatal teeth. Teeth can even be present at birth -- that's called natal teeth.

If you've ever known a newborn with teeth, we'd love to hear your story. Do tell. 

Related: 

• Her baby teeth are finally gone -- at age 28
• Top models need some space (between their teeth)
• The boy with the extra set of teeth

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Manish Swarup / AP file

"Ghost chili" peppers, pictured here at Changpool in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, were recently named the spiciest chili in the world by Guinness World Records

By Katharine Gammon
Life's Little Mysteries 

In a contest that matches humans against some of the world's hottest chili peppers, no one wins. Recently, restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland, held a competition to eat the extra-hot Kismot Killer curry. Some of the competitive eaters were left writhing on the floor in agony, vomiting and fainting.

According to reports, two British Red Cross workers overseeing the event at the Kismot Indian restaurant in Edinburgh but became overwhelmed by the number of casualties and ambulances were called. Half of the 20 people who took part in the challenge dropped out after witnessing the first diners vomiting, collapsing, sweating and panting.

So what exactly are the health impacts of eating really hot chili peppers? Can eating too much of the spicy stuff kill you?

To answer this question, Life's Little Mysteries turned to one of the experts: Paul Bosland, professor of horticulture at New Mexico State University and director of the Chile Pepper Institute, was responsible for finding the world's hottest chili pepper, the Bhut Jolokia.

Bosland says that chili peppers (or as some call them, chile peppers) can indeed cause death — but most  people's bodies would falter long before they reached that point. "Theoretically, one could eat enough really hot chiles to kill you," he says. "A research study in 1980 calculated that three pounds of extreme chilies in powder form — of something like the Bhut Jolokia — eaten all at once could kill a 150-pound person."

This scenario wouldn't likely have a chance to play out. "However, one's body would react sooner and not allow it to happen," Bosland said. "One would have to eat it all in one sitting," he says. Taken over the course of a year, those three pounds of chilies wouldn't be harmful.

Chili peppers cause the eater's insides to rev up, which can come with some problems. They activate sympathetic nervous system — which helps control most of the body's internal organs — to expend more energy, so the body burns more calories when the same food is eaten with chili peppers. "Eating chili is associated with increases in metabolic rate and thermogenesis," says John Prescott, a professor at Sussex University and editor of the journal Food Quality and Preference. "Capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili, does cause tissue inflammation so the mucosa of the stomach or intestines might be damaged by a sufficiently large dose."

Tissue inflammation could explain why the contestants in the Killer Curry contest said they felt like chainsaws were ripping through their insides. Too much of the spicy stuff can also give you a good case of heartburn.

When it comes to spicy, enough of the hot stuff can cause damage — so eat carefully out there!

Related:

• 10 Weird Things People Do Every Day (and Why)
• Is It Safe to Hold in a Sneeze?
• Why Does Your Nose Run When You Eat Spicy Food?

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Mary Pieper / The Globe Gazette via AP

Scarecrows are known for their twisted sense of humor.

In an age of GPS devices and online maps, many of us are still fearful of getting lost -- actually, our dependence on all our getting-there gadgets has made some of us even more fearful of losing our way, especially if alone or at night. 

That strange location can be continents away or a couple of towns over. Or even a corn maze, which recently happened to a Massachusetts family, who were so spooked they called 911 for rescue. 

When you search the words "fear of getting lost," you'll find some sites claiming this is called "mazeophobia." But that term doesn't appear in any medical dictionary or scientific literature searches, and it's not mentioned in any of the psychological textbooks used by Luana Marques, a clinical psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who treats people with and does research on anxiety disorders. 

Fear of getting lost may not be a clinical diagnosis, but Marques says a patient might complain of a fear of driving and a fear of unknown places.

"What that person is really afraid of is being in an uncomfortable situation that triggers the fight-or-flight reaction," Marques explains, referring to the alarm response that can make your heart race, palms sweat, hands shake and breathing quicken. 

But fear doesn't only affect you physiologically; it can also cloud your judgment.

Once the alarm response is activated, you lose some ability in the rational part of your brain, explains Marques. "That doesn't mean you can't make rational decisions, but your ability to think clearly and logically in the moment becomes less and less," she says.

If a fear is significantly interfering with your life, cognitive behavioral therapy can help you get over it, Marques suggests. Otherwise, she says, the rule of thumb is to "approach and not avoid" the situation. Take small steps to expand your comfort zone, so it makes you "comfortably uncomfortable," Marques recommends.

That may mean road trips armed with maps, printouts of directions and your favorite person on speed dial who is not directionally challenged. Or doing a dry run to a destination, when possible.

It's no guarantee that you'll never get lost, but at least, you'll wrack up more successful experiences in finding your way. 

Readers, are you afraid of getting lost -- and have you gone to great lengths to avoid it?

Related:

• Always getting lost? It may be in your genes
• When you can't find your way home
• TODAY Moms: We all need help navigating the corn maze of motherhood

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Demonstrators with 'Occupy Wall Street' protest at Zuccotti Park.

It began as Occupy Wall Street in New York, and now it's going global -- inspiring protests around the world planned this weekend from Detroit to London, and Frankfurt to New Zealand. Thousands are fed up, not taking it anymore and are taking it to the streets.

But which streets? When? And for how long? How does an angry, seemingly disorganized and leaderless group of people ever get anything done?

The angry protestors who call themselves the “99 percent” have started a movement, but to many it’s unclear what their demands are except to shine a spotlight on the “greedy and corrupt” rich -- especially bankers -- and politicians who have lost touch with the people. Critics of the largely unstructured demonstration point to examples like Detroit's take on the matter: protesters had planned for their city's occupation and march to begin today, but as of late last night, no permit had been filed.

But the group likely has more leadership than meets the eyes, says Violent Arnold, who heads Company Works, a multicultural leadership development firm in St. Paul, Minn.

“Every group that comes together has some form of leadership,” Arnold says. “But the current leadership of top-bottom is not working, and that’s why they’re protesting. We are looking for the organized group being the CEO, middle management and workers. If you walked into one of these groups, the leaders are there; you just won’t be able to identify them.”

In the book, “The Horizontal Organization: What the Organizations of the Future Actually Looks Like and How it Delivers Value to Customers,” Frank Ostroff explained more American organizations may begin looking more like this movement, where no leader is apparent.

The protestors may be able to get some goals accomplished, but with so many people coming together from all walks of life with different viewpoints and no apparent agenda, it all can quickly come unglued, says Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist in New York City.

“Horizontally-structured organizations or movements have the best morale because there’s less red tape and less leadership. That’s the way most small organizations start off,” he says. “They can reach people through the Internet, but if you don’t have some sense of what the staged goals are, you can start to have spin-offs that can carry the agenda to smaller, more organized vertical structures that will feed off the general anger.”

Psychologically speaking, these protests are mentally healthy -- whether they accomplish anything or not, Manevitz says.

“Unemployment rates have remained high, and people are feeling demoralized, despondent and desperate. They need an outlet,” he says. “If people turn their feelings inward, they get depressed. If they turn it outward, they get angry. Right now, there’s this healthy pro-activism in protest. Where it’s going remains to be determined.”

Related: 

• Clashes as Occupy protesters march on Wall Street
• Occupy Wall Street protesters clean Zuccotti Park encampment
• Stressed brokers can't keep their hands off their faces. Why?

Nick Rowe / Getty Images stock

That stuffed-up-nose feeling characteristic of a sinus infection may be due to humidity.

If you've ever had a sinus infection, you know how annoying and uncomfortable that plugged-up-nose feeling can be. But there may not actually be anything blocking your nose, says a new study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, in Philadelpha. That feeling of congestion may be due to the humidity of the air you breathe.

Nasal sinus disease, or sinusitis, affects approximately 33 million people and accounts for more than $5.8 billion in healthcare costs annually, according to a release from Monell. Most of the time, the condition is caused by infection or allergy, which, in turn, causes sinus tissues to swell. That's the can't-get-enough-air feeling that makes a sinus infection so unpleasant. And it's hard to treat, because in many cases, there's nothing really blocking the airways -- no physical obstruction, anyway.

The new study, published today in PLoS One, had 44 healthy volunteers rate their symptoms of stuffiness after breathing air from three boxes. One box contained room air at normal humidity, one held dry air at room temperature and one contained cold air. The volunteers reported feeling less nasal congestion when they breathed from the cold air box and the dry air box, with the cold air being most effective.

Study co-authors Kai Zhao, Ph.D., and co-author Bruce Bryant, Ph.D., both scientists at Monell, theorize that temperature and humidity interact as air moves through the nasal cavity to influence nasal cooling. This cooling is detected by "cool sensors" inside the nose, which can make you feel like it's easy to breathe, or not so much.

“Someone in the desert, all other things being equal, should feel less congested than someone in the jungle. In the low humidity of the desert, there is more evaporative cooling inside of the nose, such that the temperature of the nasal passages is lower. This leads to a feeling of greater air flow – and less sensation of obstruction.” said Bryant in the news release.

Does that mean folks afflicted with a sinus infection should head for the deep freeze to get relief? "From my own experience (probably most sufferers of nasal sinus disease would also agree), immediately after stepping outside during cold winter, I would often feel a brief freshness and clearness of (the nose," wrote Zhao in an e-mail. But prolonged exposure might trigger a nerve reflex, resulting in a runny nose and more congestion. "You can say our study is just scientific confirmation of our obvious daily experiences," added Zhao.

This scientific confirmation could potentially help researchers design and test better treatments for congestion -- good news for for the cloudy-headed. "I do believe understanding what our nose is sensing when we feel nasal obstruction is the initial key step to solving the problem in the future," said Zhao.

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You sweet thing, you.

Finally, there's some good news for people with a sweet tooth, and it comes in time for that sweet-gathering holiday, Halloween. People who prefer sweeter tastes seem to have sweeter dispositions, a new study suggests. So grab your favorite candy and read on.

Psychology researchers wondered whether there was any link between our taste preferences and personality traits. They reasoned that people tend to use "taste-related metaphors" in daily life, particularly sweet ones, like calling a romantic interest "sweetie," "honey" or "sugar."

We also use the term "sweet" to refer to someone who is kind, friendly and caring, and does nice things for others. Would individuals with a sweet spot for sugar truly show these sweet behaviors and characteristics?

Apparently, yes.

In one study, 55 college students rated their liking of 50 different foods from the five major taste types: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and spicy. They also answered questions about their agreeableness.

A liking of sweets was linked with a higher level of agreeableness, meaning a tendency to be friendly, cooperative, and compassionate.

In another experiment of 55 different undergraduates, students were randomly given a sweet food (milk chocolate), an unsweetened food (a bland cracker), or no food. Then they were asked to volunteer their time to help a professor.

Students given something sweet to eat were more willing to help another person compared to the other two groups. Perhaps a sweet tooth reveals more about your personality than you realize. 

Researchers have yet to investigate whether this applies to other taste-related metaphors, such as whether sourpusses have more hankerings for tart tastes or bitter "hostile" people crave bitter coffee.

The research appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 

Readers, have you noticed any links between your taste preferences and your temperament? 

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Every day is Halloween for Hugo Chavez. The 35-year-old Filipino designer (who shares a name with Venezuela's president, but, presumably, has different life goals) has spent the last 10 years of his life undergoing a series of cosmetic surgeries on his lips, chin and thighs -- all intended to make him look more like Superman.

Chavez says he's also taken injections to lighten his skin -- although he has not, to our knowledge, revealed how he gets his hair to do that perfect little curl thing. Up next: an operation that will give his abs muscular definition.

He may have the look, but he says he does know he doesn't actually have super-strength or the ability to fly. Chavez's neighbors say they're actually into his Man of Steel act, because he keeps the kids entertained and teaches them good morals, explaining that it's good deeds, not superpowers, that make a person a real hero. Aww.

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Imagine this: You take a bite of a crisp fall apple and notice your lips feel a little itchy. An odd sensation, but you ignore it and take another bite. Now your tongue is itchy too. After another bite, the itch spreads to your throat. As you swallow the apple, your throat starts to swell. The weird thing is, you're not allergic to apples; you've eaten them all your life. So what's up?

“I like to call oral allergy syndrome 'the cocktail party allergy,” says Dr. Chris Webber, an allergy/immunology specialist based in Denver, Colorado. “It is surprisingly common among people who have seasonal allergies, but (the sufferers) think there's something strange about (themselves) and never bring it up to doctors or friends. But if you bring it up at a social event, you find it is very, very common.”

Oral allergy syndrome (OAS) is a bodily response that occurs in some adult hay fever sufferers when they eat certain raw fruits and vegetables. For the majority of people, its side-effects are annoying but not life-threatening: a temporary itching of the mouth area coupled with a swelling of the throat. The more disturbing aspect is mental: Why are people suddenly allergic to foods they've eaten hundreds of times before?

In fact, it's not specific foods that are the problem: It's pollen. And OAS is just your body being a little over-protective.

Of course, your immune system means well. When you develop a pollen allergy, it's responsible for producing an antibody against that pollen. OAS occurs when your immune system mistakes the food you're eating for the pollen to which you are allergic.

Say you're allergic to birch pollen and eat an apple. Your body might detect trace amounts of pollen left on that apple and start producing antibodies. In one bite, a food you've enjoyed all your life has become an itch-inducing enemy.

Luckily, there are a couple of ways for those affected by OAS to go around the problem and enjoy their food. A common method is to literally go (all) around it, by removing a fruit's outer skin. If that's not sufficient, another tactic has even more dramatic results:

“Heating the foods denatures the fruit's cross reactive protein and renders it nonfunctional,” Dr. Webber explains. In layman's terms: cook it before you eat it, and you're good to go.

Of course, if you suffer from OAS and can't bring yourself to stay away from the raw foods, you can always just wait out the reaction; it typically only lasts about 15 minutes.

And don't forget to bond with fellow oral allergy syndrome sufferers at your next cocktail party!

OK, your turn, readers: Has this ever happened to you, or someone you know? 

Related:

• Sipping without sneezing? Scientists thwart wine allergies
• You can literally be allergic to exercise
• Real-life vampires: People who are allergic to the sun

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By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience

A 54-year-old woman showed up in the emergency room at Georgetown University Hospital with her husband, unable to remember the past 24 hours. Her newer memories were hazy, too. One thing she did recall: Her amnesia had started right after having sex with her husband just an hour before.

While sex can be forgettable or mind-blowing, for some people, it can quite literally be both at the same time. The woman, whose case was reported in the September issue of The Journal of Emergency Medicine, was experiencing transient global amnesia, a rare condition in which memory suddenly, temporarily, disappears.

People with transient global amnesia suffer no side effects, and the memory problems usually reverse themselves in the span of a few hours. It's a rare condition, affecting only about 3 to 5 people per 100,000 each year. But what makes transient global amnesia so eerie is that researchers aren't sure what causes it, or why patients remain otherwise chatty and alert while missing large chunks of their memories. [Inside the Brain: A Journey Through Time]

"We don't know very much about the cause," said Sebastian Ameriso, a neurologist at the Institute for Neurological Research in Buenos Aires, who was not involved in the 54-year-old woman's case. "It causes a lot of alarm, but this is not a stroke or an event that causes damage to the brain. It's almost always very benign."

Mind-erasing activities
Sex can trigger transient global amnesia, as can other physically strenuous activities. People in their 50s and 60s are the most likely to experience an episode, but strangely, most people with transient global amnesia have it only once. In most cases, the amnesia is anterograde, meaning people have trouble forming new memories. Sometimes, people also experience transient retrograde amnesia, forgetting some portion of their previous memories. In the case of the 54-year-old woman at the Washington, D.C., hospital, the last day was a fog, and she had been forgetful and confused since having sex.

As with most patients, the woman's brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) showed nothing unusual and no damage to the brain. By the time she left the emergency room, her symptoms were almost gone.

The closest thing to an explanation researchers have for this sex-triggered amnesia is that the problem may not begin in the brain, but in the neck. In a January 2010 study published in the journal Stroke, Ameriso and his colleagues conducted sonograms of the necks of 142 patients who'd experienced transient global amnesia within the last week. They found that 80 percent of the patients had what is called insufficiency of the valves in the jugular vein.

This vein, which runs down the side of the neck, carries spent blood from the brain back to the heart. Valves in the veins prevent blood from flowing backward toward the head, but if the valves don't close sufficiently, blood could seep back upward.

Memory mysteries
The best guess for what might be happening is that patients unwittingly trigger the transient global amnesia by raising the pressure inside their abdomens. This is called the "Valsalva maneuver," familiar as the "bearing down" people might do when lifting weights, defecating or even having sex. The increased pressure increases the resistance to blood flowing down the jugular veins, and insufficient valves may allow deoxygenated blood to push back up the neck. Oxygen-poor blood then "piles up" in the veins draining the brain, especially in central brain regions that are key to memory formation. The result could  be transient amnesia.

What this explanation doesn't cover is why most people with transient global amnesia experience it only once, Ameriso told Livescience.

"This doesn't explain why this would happen only once while we do this Valsalva maneuver many times during the day," he said.

Whatever the cause, transient global amnesia can be upsetting. In one case reported in 1964, a man lost his memory the moment he orgasmed, causing him to exclaim, "Where am I? What's happened?" [10 Surprising Sex Statistics]

People with transient global amnesia usually rush to the hospital in great distress, Ameriso said — which is not a bad thing, given that sudden memory loss can also herald a stroke or other serious neurological problems.

For doctors and patients alike the most important thing is a quick diagnosis, Ameriso said. Otherwise, patients can languish in the hospital for days, waiting anxiously for test results.

"It's important to be able to diagnose this very quickly, looking for the insufficiency in the veins," Ameriso said. "If you can confirm that this is the case, you can save a lot of money."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and onFacebook.

More from LiveScience:

• Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind
• 6 (Other) Great Things Sex Can Do For You
• 5 Myths About Women's Bodies

Related:

• Shape of a woman's pout may mean better sex
• Botox for your bits? Shot may smooth over sex problems
• Blindingly good sex? It can literally happen

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Adam Gault / Getty Images

Do you scarf down a free doughnut no matter how long it's been sitting in the office kitchen? Or huddle in your man cave for Sunday afternoon football and break open the adult beverages and chips even though you just finished lunch? Or have ice cream most evenings while watching TV?

Your environment can be a powerful trigger in shaping your eating habits. That's why a new study looked at how changing those surroundings may help change your ways. The research appears in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

In one experiment, 98 volunteers were handed a box of fresh or week-old popcorn before entering a movie theatre to watch the coming attractions. A second group of 60 participants was also given fresh or stale popcorn before watching music videos in a college meeting room.

Researchers wanted to find out if people who typically ate movie popcorn would eat more of it regardless of the setting or its freshness.

They'd expected that people with strong "popcorn eating habits" would still eat less stale popcorn than fresh in the theater, says David Neal, one of the study's lead co-authors. "We found that they ate, in statistical terms, exactly the same amount regardless of whether it was fresh or stale," he explains.

In other words, they stuffed their face out of habit because they were at the movies, whether the snack tasted good or not. But volunteers with a penchant for popcorn consumed less of it in the meeting room and also ate less of the stale stuff in this location than the fresh kind.

"We show that your personal history of having eaten in an environment a lot in the past is very important in forming habits that seem to increase mindless eating," suggests Neal, director of Empirica Research. Although you might not be aware of it, your brain associates the food with prior consumption in that setting.

In a second study, 89 moviegoers received either fresh or stale popcorn. Half of them were asked to eat with their non-dominant hand and the rest used their dominant hand. 

Habitual popcorn eaters ate much less of the stale popcorn than the fresh when they used their non-dominant hand. It appeared to throw a wrench in their usual moviegoing behavior and made them focus more on what they were eating and how it tasted.

"Behavior change doesn't just come from setting goals and having good willpower," points out Neal. Avoiding environments that you know trigger your unwanted habits or changing the physical action in some way to disengage the habitual brain systems -- for example, switching hands -- also needs to be part of the solution, he suggests.

Of course, you can shift hands for finger foods, such as pizza or snacks, but it's impractical when eating with utensils, admits Neal. Other researchers, such as Cornell's Brian Wansink, have shown that using smaller dinner plates or serving smaller portions of unhealthy foods, can also help control consumption.

Readers, what's worked for you to help break a bad eating habit?

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Lewis Jacobs / Lewis Jacobs/NBC

How do a capella singers, like those on the NBC show "The Sing Off," manage those vocal gymnastics, anyway?

When watching the NBC reality show "The Sing-Off," a singing competition featuring a cappella groups, it's incredible to hear how full a sound the singers can produce with just their pure voices and no musical accompaniment. The human voice is the only "instrument" used. 

With a cappella singing "you're putting everything out in the open with nothing else but the voice box, lips, teeth, and tongue to shape the music being made," says Dr. Thomas Carroll, a voice specialist and director of the center for voice and swallowing at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Carroll should know. Before attending medical school, he majored in music and sang high tenor in the Oberlin Obertones, an all-male collegiate a cappella group.

According to Carroll, a cappella singing is not necessarily more demanding on the voice than singing with musical accompaniment. But, he says, it may take more athleticism from a vocal standpoint, especially to beat box, also known as vocal percussion, or mimicking the sounds of drum beats, rhythms, and other percussion instruments.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Making those explosive drum set sounds is a unique skill, explains Carroll. You have to breathe more often than other kinds of singing and support the breath for a two- to three-minute song. "It's almost like running a marathon," he points out.

Endurance is one of the unique challenges of a cappella singing and another is top-notch technique, says Jodi Jenkins, an associate professor in the voice department of the Berklee School of Music in Boston, who has sung soprano in the a cappella quintet Vox One for two decades. Since singers are not supported by music, she explains, you need really good ears to keep everybody on key and together rhythmically.

And you need a good understanding of musical instruments to figure out how to mimic them without sounding cheesy, Jenkins suggests. She considers the electric guitar one of the harder instruments to imitate because making the sounds is rough on the voice.

A cappella, meaning "in the church style" in Italian, originated when musical instruments were not allowed at religious services. It has since evolved to include barbershop quartets and doo-wop groups, and the genre, which now includes everything from rock to jazz to gospel, has been enthusiastically embraced at the collegiate level and in some high schools.

"The Sing-Off" introduces the musical form to an even larger audience. But of the 16 groups competing this season, would coed groups have any physiological edge over single-sex groups?

Both Carroll and Jenkins believe that an all-female group might be at a slight disadvantage because they would not have a deep bass voice so they could be limited in lower vocal ranges. An all-male group without a falsetto voice might run into similar difficulties in the higher octaves.

Although a coed group gives you all the voice options, ultimately it comes down to talent, sound, and performance. During the show's first two seasons both winners have been all-male groups with six people.

While larger groups have more energy from more participants, Jenkins says they may also have too much going on and lose the music. She favors smaller groups with at least five people for all the vocal parts, which she considers more intimate so audiences can get to know the performers better.

Readers, have you tuned in and become a new fan of a cappella music? And a cappella singers, tell us how you make those instrumental sounds seem so authentic.

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You're not imagining it: You're shrinking. And as the years slip by, you're just going to keep getting shorter. This morning, TODAY contributor Dr. Roshini Raj explains the phenomenon discussed in a Wall Street Journal story last month. 

"A little bit of shrinking is a normal part of aging, and it happens because of three things, basically," Raj says. First, as we age, the discs between our vertebrates lose fluid, so they flatten a bit and your vertebrates "simply come together, so your spine is actually shrinking a little bit," Raj explains. 

The arches of your feet also tend to flatten a bit as we age. Finally, we lose muscle mass as we age -- especially in our abdomen, which leads to poorer posture -- which gives the appearance of being shorter. 

On average, we shrink about a quarter to a third of an inch per decade for every decade after 40. All told, men will get about 1.2 to 1.5 inches shorter, and women will lose up to 2 inches, by age 70. "For men it's less prominent because they have more muscle mass in general and their bones tend to be stronger they lose less height," Raj says. 

If you're losing more inches than that, it could be a sign of osteoporosis -- very weak or brittle bones that make you more prone to fractures. Check it out with your doctor. Smoking excessive alcohol and caffeine consumption and not exercising can also make you more prone to losing height, Raj explains.

But you can stop yourself from shrinking too much by regularly exercising -- especially weight-bearing exercises like jogging or running, or other activities that work the legs and the hips. A diet rich in vitamin D and calcium also helps -- try almonds, broccoli or kale, or you can take supplements. One last trick: Maintaining a good posture keeps your bones healthy, and keeps stress off your vertebrae. 

Do you think you're getting shorter as you age? Do you remember watching a parent or grandparent get smaller as the years went on? Leave a comment telling us about it. 

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Carolyn Kaster / AP

You wouldn't believe how many of these guys are missing toenails. Taken at the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Va., Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010.

A few weeks before her first marathon, Kristel Crame bought a trendy purple polish to cover her toenails, one of which she'd bruised on a long training run.

But as she started her at-home pedicure, "I noticed a toenail seemed a bit loose. It seemed like the bottom part was connected and the top part was all lifted up," she said. Even stranger: A new, normal toenail was growing underneath the unhinged one.

This month, as runners across the country put the finishing touches on their marathon-training regime, thousands will share the experience of losing a toenail. Also known as "black toenail" and "runner's toe," it's a harmless occurrence, according to Dr. Marybeth Crane, a Texas podiatrist and board certified foot surgeon who has run dozens of marathons and triathlons over the past 32 years.

For many runners, when the old-and-busted toenail falls off, they find what seems to be a "backup toenail" underneath. But we don't actually  have replacement toenails waiting in the wings: When a toenail is bruised, it stops growing but stays attached.

"We actually have matrix cells in the nail bed, that's where the new toenail comes from, and it literally pushes off the old one" as it grows, Crane explains. The dead toenail stays on to protect the sensitive skin.

Nail bruises can be caused by anything from ill-fitting shoes and socks to a plodding stride or hammer toes. Even perfectly fitted shoes can be a problem: Over the course of a marathon, feet can swell half a size or more.

Crane calls black toenails "one of life's minor annoyances" that can be avoided by keeping toenails clipped, buying long-distance shoes a half-size large and ensuring the toe box accommodates your foot properly.

Though losing a toenail poses no harm, Crane has two important cautions. First: No bathroom surgery. "All of the Internet is going to tell you to light a match on a needle and stick it under the toenail" to drain the bruise. Do that and you’ll likely get an infected, swollen toe that needs medical attention.

Second: If your toenail develops a dark line that does not grow out or disappear, see a doctor right away. "There is a very rare form of melanoma that will happen underneath the toenail" that can be deadly if left untreated.

With all her expertise and precautions, even Crane has lost a few toenails over her decades-long running career: Four, actually. As for Crame -- the runner -- she now coaches beginning marathoners in Seattle, making sure to school them on the art of losing a toenail.

Are you a distance runner who's in mourning over a lost toenail? Do tell. 

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You're sitting in a quiet place like a library, religious service or lecture hall, when the silence becomes interrupted by the guttural tones of someone who is frequently clearing his or her throat. Mind you, this is no mild "ahem." This sounds disgusting, like someone about to hock a loogie.

And it continues, without any coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing or other outward signs of a cold or allergies.

Excessive throat-clearing is more of a symptom than a diagnosis, says Dr. Phillip Song, a laryngologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. It usually starts with a physical component, such as acid reflux or an upper respiratory tract infection. But then it can become behavioral when it becomes habituated, he explains. "It's hard to know when it crosses that line."

So, how can you tell the difference between garden-variety throat clearing from a cold, sore throat, or seasonal allergies and the chronic kind? If it lasts less then two weeks in general, that's situational, says Song. If it's greater than three months and it's there all the time while you're awake, that's chronic throat-clearing. 

Two of the most common causes of frequent throat clearing are laryngopharyngeal reflux, or LPR, and seasonal allergies, explains Song.

Reflux from the stomach, which may or may not be acidic, comes up through the esophagus and into the back of the throat, where it can irritate the voice box. People with LPR may also have post-nasal drip, an excess of throat mucus, or the feeling like something is stuck in the throat, but nothing is there.

With allergies, an environmental trigger whether it's pollen, ragweed, or mold is causing itchiness and inflammation in the nose and throat, which forms one continuous airspace. It's tickling the throat creating a desire to clear it.

People with allergies or reflux are also producing a dry, sticky mucus that's leading to a phlegm-filled sound when the throat is cleared.

Sometimes asthma can make the throat irritable and hypersensitive. Chronic throat-clearing may also occur in a condition known as vocal hyperfunction, where friction along the length of the vocal cords from straining to speak or explosive coughing, forms small ulcers or masses.

Occasionally, excessive throat clearing is a side effect of people taking blood pressure medications known as ACE inhibitors, so you'd need to switch to a different drug.

Treatment for the problem depends on the cause. There are medications to ease reflux, allergies, and asthma. Voice therapy can help break the throat-clearing cycle of vocal hyperfunction. 

If you're persistently clearing your throat and it doesn't go away, have your doctor check it out. Most of the time, people are aware they are doing this and it can disrupt their lives, Song says. But sometimes, a spouse brings the person to the doctor's office because the throat-clearing is driving them crazy, he points out.

Has constant throat clearing ever driven you nuts?

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Whether you love or loathe cilantro, guacamole wouldn't be the same without it.

Cilantro: delightful element of delicious tacos and pico de gallo -- or horrid herb of death that smacks of soap? Like Facebook's Timeline and every episode of "Glee" ever, there's an undeniable "love it or hate it" quality about cilantro.

Actually, the haters are backed by some respected culinary tastemakers: Ina Garten (aka Barefoot Contessa) and Top Chef Fabio Viviani are the latest celebrity chefs to side with cilantrophobes, as they recently told our TODAY.com team. And Julia Child confessed to Larry King in a 2002 interview that she if she ever sees the herb in something she'd ordered, she would pick it out and "throw it on the floor." Harsh. 

On Team Cilantro: behavioral neuroscientist Charles J. Wysocki, of the Morell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Wysocki has been attempting to pinpoint the polarizing nature of coriander leaves -- better known, of course, as cilantro. Wysocki has studied preferences for cilantro in twins, both fraternal and identical. In identical twins, if one twin hates the smell of cilantro, the other is more likely to hate it; the flip side is true, too -- if an identical twin loves the smell, the other will likely love it, too.

"That does not hold for fraternal twins," explains Wysocki, adding that these findings "suggest very strongly that whatever it is that people underlies the preference is genetically determined." 

Cilantro: Love it or loathe it?

But what is it about cilantro that some people find so intensely offensive? To begin to find out, Wysocki has used gas chromoatography, a contraption that uses heat to separates a complex mixture of molecules -- like cilantro -- piece by piece, allowing researchers to identify each individual compound, by using both the instrument and their own noses. The GC, as it's called, warms the cilantro, and as it heats up, that "soapy" smell is released. About 10 minutes later, the pleasantly herbaceous cilantro smell is emitted -- but the typical cilantro hater still can't smell it. 

"What we think might be happening is the person who hates cilantro is, in fact, detecting the soapy odor. But what they seem to be missing is the nice, aromatic, green component," says Wysocki, who thinks the smell of cilantro is quite pleasant. "It’s possible that they have a mutated or even an absent receptor gene for the receptor protein that would interact with the very pleasant smelling compound."

Hear that, cilantro haters? You're mutants, says a scientist. (We kid, we kid.)

As the theory goes -- and Wysocki is quick to remind that this is still speculative -- cilantrophobes may not be able to pick up the scent of a compound called dodecenal, which gives the cilantro that lovely fresh scent we cilantrophiles know so well. It's even possible, Wysocki allows, that those soap-smellers may have something called specific anosmia, which is the lack of perception of an odor for a specific compound, when the smell is otherwise intact.

Readers, what about you? Whether you love cilantro or can't stand it, make your case in the comments. If you hate it -- is it because of the soapy smell/taste, or something else? 

Related: 

• Bites: Cilantro -- love it or loathe it?
• Phantom smells may be a sign of trouble
• Sniff test: Living without a sense of smell

Follow cilantro-lover and msnbc.com health editor Melissa Dahl on Twitter: @melissadahl.

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Nati Harnik / AP

Go ahead. Have a good cry. It'll give you a mental edge, both on and off the field, says a new study.

Everyone needs a good cry now and then — even football players.

College football players who think it's OK to cry, say, after losing a big game, have higher self-esteem than those tough-guy players who say tears are a no-no, a new study shows. The researchers also found that players who show physical affection toward their teammates are happier.

The researchers studied how gender stereotypes about crying affect football players, and how their beliefs regarding emotion on the field influence other aspects of their lives.

Participants included 150 college football players from two universities, one in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II and the other in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The participants had an average age of 19 and were mostly white.

The students read a scenario about a football player named Jack who cries after a game, with participants reading one of four twists to the story: Jack just tears up after losing the game; he tears up after winning the game; he sobs after losing the game; or he sobs after winning the game.

Students tended to think tearing up after losing a game was typical and appropriate for a football player. However, they didn't accept sobbing as an appropriate reaction in the losing situation. The players also said they would be more likely to tear up than sob if they were in Jack's place.

The study also showed that the group that read a story in which Jack sobs after losing a game asserted that his reaction was more typical among football players than the group that read a story in which Jack sobs after his team won the game.

"In 2009, the news media disparaged University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow for crying on the sidelines after losing a big game, even labeling him Tim 'Tearbow,'" study researcher Y. Joel Wong, a psychologist at Indiana University-Bloomington, said in a statement.  

In a second experiment, 153 football players, who were also mostly white and had an average age of 19, answered questions regarding whether they felt pressured by society to act powerful and competitive while displaying little emotion and affection in front of other men.

The researchers also questioned the subjects about their overall life satisfaction and the ways in which they expressed emotions on and off the field. The experiment's results showed that football players do feel pressure to conform to gender roles when it comes to expressing emotion, but also found that players who were never showed affection toward their teammates were less satisfied with their lives.

Overall, college football players who "are emotionally expressive are more likely to have a mental edge on and off the field," said study researcher Jesse Steinfeldt, who is also a psychologist at the university.

The findings may also speak to the aforementioned incident in which Tebow was ridiculed for crying on the sidelines after losing a big game. [Read: Touchy-Feely NBA Teams More Likely to Win]

"The college football players in our study who believed Jack's crying was appropriate had higher self-esteem," Wong said. "In contrast, players who believed Jack's crying was inappropriate yet felt they would likely cry in Jack's situation had lower self-esteem."

The study was recently published in the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinity.

You can follow LiveScience writer Remy Melina on Twitter @remymelina. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience  and on Facebook.

• 5 Myths About the Male Body
• 10 Things You Didn't Know About You
• 10 Things Every Man Should Know about a Woman's Brain

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Admit it: You like her already!

Have you ever fallen asleep in a public place, started snoring loudly until it woke you up, then noticed others staring at you? Or accidentally knocked over your water glass in a crowded restaurant and sent it crashing to the floor?

Although these flubs may leave you red-faced, avoiding eye contact, or laughing nervously, a new study suggests that embarrassment can be a good thing. 

The upside of being easily flustered is that people are likely to perceive you as a kind and caring person -- someone that others are likely to trust and want to be friends with, says study lead author Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

That's great news the next time you feel ashamed because you just asked a woman with a protruding belly when her baby is due -- except she's not pregnant, or you let out a loud belch at a staff meeting. Just keep in mind that previous research has found that embarrassment serves as a form of social apology and a fence-mending gesture.

This new research, published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, looked at whether embarrassment might reveal a person's prosocial tendencies, meaning the ability to be generous, trustworthy, giving, and caring toward other people.

In one experiment, 57 college students were videotaped recalling an extremely embarrassing moment. Most described social gaffes like passing gas or tripping over something. Students also completed two tests measuring their generosity and cooperativeness, and raters evaluated their videos to determine how embarrassing their stories were and how humiliated the participants felt. 

In this experiment and four others, researchers found that observers viewed embarrassment as a signal of kind and generous behavior. Feeling ashamed indicated that you care about others and have a desire not to hurt them, suggests Feinberg. "Observers can feel safe that an embarrassed individual will be less likely to take advantage of them or be unfaithful," he explains.

So what does it say about someone who barely reacts to having egg on your face? An observer may perceive a less embarrassable individual as a person who you may not want to trust or who may be more selfish, Feinberg says.

Although expressing embarrassment may make you feel momentarily uncomfortable, Feinberg points out it helps people get information about someone's character and reliability, and may be one way we can signal to others that we can be relied upon.

The results do not apply to feeling shame or to those with social anxiety, neither of which were studied.

Since it will only make you seem more likeable, want to share your most embarrassing moment ever? Leave your story in the comments, and we may feature you in an upcoming post.

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Clearly, she's embarrassed to turn around, lest we see her "runner's face."

Runners, beware. A New Jersey cosmetic surgeon has pinpointed something  more nefarious than shin splints, stress fractures and even dead butt syndrome: "runner's face." 

This is what Dr. Brian S. Glatt, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New Jersey, calls that skinny, Skeletor-esque look some dedicated runners may unwittingly develop, as they're likely distracted with all the miles they have to cover to prepare for their next race. Glatt describes the horrors thusly, in a press release issued today:

Runner’s face generally occurs in both men and women ages 40+ who exercise to improve their body, and in doing so end up with a skeletal and bony face. When exercising, an athlete burns off fat beneath the layers of his/her skin. The marked loss of fatty tissue results in a loss of volume which leads to a prominent appearance of the bones, accelerated development of skin laxity and deepening of wrinkles. Though you may look like a 20-year-old from the neck down—your face will easily give away your age.

Full disclosure: I ran my first marathon in June, and I definitely did get that hollow-cheek look described in the release. (Although I'm 26, not 40-plus.) So Glatt kind of has a point, allows Dr. Tony Youn, a Michigan-based cosmetic surgeon and frequent contributor to msnbc.com. 

"The general idea is that the leaner we are, the less fat we have in our face," says Youn. "One of the signs of facial aging is loss of facial volume. So losing weight or becoming very lean (like many runners are) can cause the face to look older."

"Runners face" is a cutesy, catchy term, but Youn points out this idea could apply to anyone who is thin for a variety of reasons -- playing a lot of sports, excessive dieting or anorexia, or genetics. And, Youn helpfully points out, rigorous exercise isn't the only thing contributing to aging -- sun damage does a fine job of that on its own. 

Glatt suggests a Botox-Restylane (or other injectable filler) combo, which will smooth wrinkles and plump that gaunt face right back up. Youn says the treatments in Glatt's anti-runners face arsenal would certainly work.

"That being said, I've never told someone to stop running so they could look younger," Youn says. "That's just silly."

What say you, readers? Is the old adage true -- do you really have to choose between your bum and your face? And, if that's true -- which would you choose? A fit, fierce body, or a youthful face? 

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