Some of us get the chills when hearing Handel’s exultant “Messiah” this time of year. For others, it’s the simple, yet joyful opening strains of Vince Guaraldi’s music at the start of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Or it might be Bing Crosby’s poignant “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” that triggers goose bumps. (Or for the sillier of us, his whimsical “Mele Kalikimaka” might just do it.)

Well, it turns out that getting chills upon hearing music is an actual thing, you know, like scientists study. And a new report in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science says that who gets music-induced chills and who doesn’t might depend on personality.

Musical chills, write the authors, from the University of North Carolina, are “sometimes known as aesthetic chills, thrills, shivers, frisson, and even skin orgasms [who knew?] … and involve a seconds-long feeling of goose bumps, tingling, and shivers, usually on the scalp, the back of the neck, and the spine, but occasionally across most of the body.”

The scientific explanation for chills is that the emotions evoked by beautiful or meaningful music stimulate the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which controls primal drives such as hunger, sex and rage and also involuntary responses like blushing and goosebumps. When the song soars, your body can't help but shiver.

Some people report lots of skin orgasms and some people say they never get them, but the personality trait “openness to experience” seems like a good predictor. (By "open to experience" the researchers seem to mean those people who enjoy art, good movies, aesthetic stuff.)

That’s what the North Carolina researchers wanted to test. So they took 196 people and assessed their music preferences; how often they experienced chills, goose bumps, hair standing on end and the like; their engagement with music (such as whether they played an instrument); and their personality types. The only personality trait with a significant impact on music-induced chills was indeed “openness.”

Genre, the style of music people listened to, didn’t seem to matter, though a deeper engagement with music in general did. So “Messiah,” Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” and your child’s rendition of “Oh Christmas Tree” might all give chills (though your kid’s singing might just be scary) if you’re the open type.

In 2007, scientists from the University of California San Diego studied whether or not getting chills from music enhanced altruism by measuring whether or not those who got them were more willing to donate blood. It turned out that the skin orgasm getters may be open, but chills didn’t make them any more giving, which might mean those guys ringing those damn bells ought to give it a rest already. Since music doesn't make us any more generous why not play something good? Try some Vince Guaraldi instead.

What music gives you chills? Tell us in the comments.

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Here's a question about urine we never thought about but now has us rather curious: Does everybody make that icky smell after eating asparagus and some people simply can't smell it -- like those guys on the bus who seem incapable of sensing their own ripe body aromas -- or is it some people just don't turn asparagus into chemical weaponry?

Scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia cared enough to find out.

The answer (drum roll, please): Both.

About 8 percent of 38 test subjects who ate roasted asparagus (yum!) did not have smelly pee. About 6 percent could not smell the odor. One lucky person could not do either.

Why would anybody care? Well, it all has to do with individual genetic variation and metabolism, which is kind of interesting. But there might be a practical implication, too. The no-smell folks might not be able to detect a compound related to the one in smelly asparagus pee, mercaptan, which is added to natural gas to make it noticeable.

We don't really want you commenting on this post, because we feel that enough has been said about asparagus and pee for the day. But if you insist, go on.

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Janet Helm writes: One guy is addicted to raw meat. A woman only wants to eat french fries. Another man lives on pizza. People with food obsessions are the focus of a new show called “Freaky Eaters” that premiered this month on TLC. The series, based on a British show of the same name, profiles people who the hosts say have bizarre culinary compulsions.

Each week, psychotherapist Mike Dow and celebrity nutritionist J.J. Virgin sweep in to stage a food intervention and fix the freakiness in 22 minutes. But while the show claims it helps a freaky eater “confront the painful truth behind the food obsession and come face to face with the destructive side effects of their addictions,” judging from the first few episodes, some of the treatments may be wackier than the so-called disorders.

In one episode, Dow and Virgin attempt to get a french fry obsessed woman to shun her potato fixation by forcing her to eat fries that have been dyed blue. A young girl is told to paint with broccoli stalks and jelly to help her better embrace vegetables. Another woman who is supposedly addicted to sugar is blind-folded and fed raw kale to help her retrain her taste buds. (That didn’t go over so well.) A pizza-addicted guy suddenly feels like he can ditch his daily pizza habit after an emotion-filled session with his parents helps him realize that they’re not disappointed in him after all.

The tone of the show is just so dramatic – with such language as “solving the mystery” and beating the “addiction that is destroying his life.” Really? Maybe these folks are just extremely picky eaters and need to get out of a rut. Maybe they do need to jumpstart a healthier lifestyle. But are these truly addictions?

As a registered dietitian, I’m conflicted about reality shows like this. Maybe some of these people do have eating disorders that need more help than what they’ll get in front of a camera. Ongoing sessions with a therapist or a registered dietitian who specializes in disordered eating would be more beneficial than a quick, televised fix that gets them to temporarily step away from a french fry.

Do you eat like a freak? Share your twisted dietary tales.

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When a crowd of about 50 Aussies started pawing at their suddenly burning, aching eyes, panic set in.

Did somebody release poison gas? (But why would terrorists strike the dairy pavilion at the Royal Adelaide agricultural show?)

No, it’s so, so much worse.

Austrialian health officials were called in CSI-like to investigate the outbreak, Reuters Life! reports. The culprit: Stagnant cow urine.

Apparently wet weather triggered an extra potent pee odor -- murder on the eyeballs.

The ammonia smell sent 20 people to the hospital; 30 were treated by first aid workers. All are OK.

Just something to consider next time your eyes tear up.

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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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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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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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Most adults have long forgotten the day their last baby tooth came out, but for Emily Cheeseman of England, it was like yesterday. That’s because Cheeseman just "lost" her six front baby teeth at age 28.

According to a story on Dentristry.co.uk, Cheeseman was born with hypodontia, a condition where a number of adult teeth don’t develop. In Cheeseman’s case, not only did her permanent teeth not come in, her six front baby teeth stayed put. She recently had those baby teeth removed in order to make room for new dental implants.

“There are surprisingly large numbers of people walking around with baby teeth,” says New York dentist Dr. Michael Sinkin. “I can think of half a dozen patients in my practice who have lower baby molars. Although six baby teeth in front is unusual.”

Baby teeth usually appear at around five or six months, with all 20 baby teeth usually showing up by age 2 ½. By five, the first permanent tooth comes in with most permanent teeth (with the exception of wisdom teeth) arriving at around age 12 or 13.

In most cases, the permanent tooth’s arrival heralds the demise of the baby tooth (not to mention the arrival of the tooth fairy). But if a permanent tooth doesn’t come in, Sinkin says it’s not unusual for a baby tooth to stick around.

“If the permanent tooth doesn’t develop then oftentimes, the baby tooth’s roots don’t resorb (or dissolve),” he says. “It’s very common, if they’re missing the permanent tooth, for the baby teeth to stay.”

Although Cheeseman opted to have her six front baby teeth extracted and replaced with dental implants, Sinkin says it’s actually feasible for an adult to keep a baby tooth his or her whole life.

“If a root doesn’t resorb, [the tooth] could last a person’s lifetime,” he says. “I have a 72-year-old woman who currently needs a crown on a baby tooth because of decay. She doesn’t have a permanent tooth there.”

Although hypodontia is nothing to worry about, “as long as you’re under the care of a dentist,” Sinkin says there is a chance it could be associated with certain genetic conditions (according to a 2008 study, hypodentia may also be a risk marker for epithelial ovarian cancer).

As for which teeth will likely shortchange come tooth fairy time, experts say wisdom teeth are the most common permanent teeth not to develop; after that, it’s the upper lateral incisors, the teeth on either side of your two front teeth.

“If you look at early pictures of David Bowie, you’ll see his eye teeth where the lateral incisors should be,” he says. “He subsequently had a bit of dentistry done.”

Do you still have some of your baby teeth? Or know someone who does? Tell us about it in the comments.

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We’ve all heard the stories of people keeping outrageous numbers of animals. The Today Show ran a segment on the topic just last week, to coincide with the premiere of Animal Planet’s new show, “Confessions: Animal Hoarders”.

But why is it so many of these tales seem to involve women and cats?

There was the elderly woman in Phoenix with 104 cats, 10 of them dead and tucked into freezers; the woman in Greeley, Colo., whose house was condemned after authorities discovered she was harboring 83 felines. Women cat hoarders have been discovered in Citrus Heights, Calif., where a woman and her mother had 60 cats; Orange City, Fla., where rescue workers discovered an unconscious woman surrounded by 59 cats and Piney Flats, Tenn., where a 64-year-old woman was found living in a trailer with 31 cats.

And that’s just so far this month.

Is there something that makes women more prone to animal hoarding than men?

“According to a 2002 study, 75 percent or more of animal hoarders are women who are middle age or older, usually unmarried and often socially isolated from family and friends,” says Dr. Christiana Bratiotis, project director of the Hoarding Research Project at Boston University’s School of Social Work.

One reason women may hoard animals more often is because we’re biologically hardwired to take care of things.

“Animal hoarders label themselves as rescuers,” she says. “And when you think about the connotation of that word, that seems to fit in with the gender role of women in this society. We’re rescuers and caregivers and care providers.”

While it may be difficult to reconcile care-giving with horror stories of homes littered with animal feces and/or dead carcasses, Bratiotis says people who hoard animals really do believe they’re caring for the creatures.

“Because of their mental illness, they have a very distorted belief that they are the person best suited to provide care for the animals,” she says. “They’re reluctant to place their animals in another person’s care, despite the fact they’re not well-fed or getting adequate veterinary care. They believe they’re doing well by the animals.”

While it seems that cats somehow are the hoarders' pet of choice, that's simply because there's such a prevalance of felines says Bratiotis. After cats, people also hoard dogs, birds, horses, sheep, goats, rabbits, rodents and reptiles. Or occasionally, a mix of everything, as in a recent Philadelphia hoarding case where a woman was found with 53 cats, eight dogs, 21 chinchillas and eight birds.

While the exact line where a loving cat owner starts to collect them and edge into hoarding country can be hard to pinpoint, Bratiotis points to the criteria experts use to define animal hoarding.

If the cats are not well-fed, not getting adequate veterinary care, don’t have enough space and are regularly making too much of a mess for you to clean up, you’ve got too many, she says, whether that number is six, 16 or (gulp) 60.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Why do you think about people collect animals? Ever known anyone who hoarded pets? Tell us about it in the comments.

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People, pay attention to the instructions on your meds. If not for your health – at least consider your hair.

A 16-year-old Bay Area blonde learned this last year, when a band of her hair suddenly and mysteriously turned nearly white. She first noticed the change a week after returning from a two-week vacation in Costa Rica. While on the trip, she took chloroquine phosphate, an anti-malarial drug. But instead of taking 500 mg of the drug weekly, she took that amount every day.

“You could see across her hair, there was just this band of lighter color,” says Dr. Vera H. Price, a dermatology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who described the case in today's New England Journal of Medicine. “They were very worried. She was concerned that something was drastically wrong and serious.”

It’s called hair hypopigmentation, and while it’s a weird side effect, it’s a harmless one. The bright blond hair is already starting to grow out, Price says. (The teen is lucky: In some cases, too much chloroquine has caused hair loss.) Most cases occur after three months of daily doses of 500 mg of the drug, but it happened much faster in this case.

“Whenever you take a pill of any time, for any reason, pay attention,” Price says. “Be careful, and know what you’re doing. It’s just a matter of respecting medications.”

Have you experienced weird side effects to your medications? Tell us about it in the comments.

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In the "Real Housewives of New Jersey," Danielle Staub recently went under the knife to get her cosmetically-botched breasts evened out since one was bigger --- and higher -- than the other.

But Danielle isn’t the only “unbalanced” female out there.

“Ninety percent of women have some type of asymmetric breasts,” says Dr. Tony Youn, a plastic surgeon in Troy, Mich. “It’s very common. One side of our body is always a little different from the other. There are some women that have minor asymmetry -– to the point where they don’t even notice it -- and others who are one, two or three cup sizes different from one side to the other.”

Such is the case for Christine, a 38-year-old media consultant from Seattle, who asked not to give her last name for fear of being outed as having what she calls “teeter totter" ta-tas.

“It’s like I’m big boob girl and medium boob girl,” she says. “I first noticed it during puberty and was more self-conscious about it then, but now I just wear this shoulder pad thing that you can buy in any lingerie department. It’s kind of expected that women are asymmetrical but with some women, it’s just more dramatic than others.”

Perhaps the most dramatic asymmetry is found with Poland’s Syndrome, a medical condition where -- among other symptoms -- women (or men) will have one “normal” breast and one breast that completely lacks muscle, breast tissue or even a nipple.

Breast-feeding can also cause one breast to become smaller or droopier, says Youn (“The droopier side is usually the baby’s favorite”) as can cosmetic surgery complications, such as an implant that’s “gone bad.”

Although asymmetrical breasts are perfectly normal, Youn says they can still affect some women’s self-image and even their ability to have relationships.

“I’ve had women in their late 20s come in and say I’ve never taken my shirt off in front of a man before,” he says. “They feel quote unquote deformed.”

Christine, who recently married, is more philosophical about her “lopsided ladies.”

“Maybe if I had an endless amount of money I’d have surgery, but it’s more like why bother at this point,” she says. “It’s irritating and you have to learn to dress for your figure. But boys don’t care. They’re just like, whatever.”

Do you have any other asymmetries you're embarrassed about? Proud of? Tell us about it in the comments.

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Megan Fox is hot. It's just true. But sometimes, it's kind of fun to take down the prettiest girl in school. Turns out the 24-year-old actress, who is year after year among Maxim's Sexiest Women Alive, actually does have a physical flaw – her thumbs look like two big toes.

The scientific name for stump thumb is Brachydactyly type D, but the condition is also called club thumb, stub thumb, fat thumb, potter's thumb and toe thumb. It's also known as "murderer's thumb," a moniker once used by gypsy fortune tellers.

Whatever you call it, club thumbs are an inherited trait, and the condition is fairly common – up to 4 percent of the population is estimated to have a stubby thumb. But Fox might be a little sensitive about the whole thing; in a Motorola ad that aired during the Super Bowl this year, she's said to have used a thumb double.

Video: Fox fabulous but flawed

No need to be ashamed, dear. People like your thumbs! No, really, they do – more than 1,000 people "like" Megan Fox's thumbs on Facebook. And for the toe-thumbed among us who aren't celebrities, don't worry – Facebook's got you covered, too. A group called BRACHYDACTYLY Type D has more than 900 members, each of them proudly giving the condition a stumpy thumbs up. The page's wall is covered with notes like "BDDs unite!" and "I finally feel like I belong !!:)" Some seem to use the page to alert the group to other toe-thumbs out there; a woman named Sue Brown helpfully notes:

"Hey, try to catch the CHEEZ_IT cracker commercial where the researcher is trying to determine if the block of cheese is mature enough. he is checking off on a clip board whether or not the cheese is ready and his left thumb holding the clip board is definitely a BRACH-D thumb :)"

Do you have a bodily quirk that you're particularly proud of? Tell us about it in the comments.

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