Put down that razor. Step away from the wax. That Brazilian might be causing the spread of a sexually transmitted infection, according to a new study.  

A dermatologist in Nice, France, observed more and more patients coming to his office with molluscum contagiosum virus (MCV) outbreaks in their nether regions (molluscum contagiosum, incidentally, sounds more like a “Harry Potter” spell than a virus). About 93 percent of these 30 patients, both male and female, shaved, waxed, or clipped their pubic hair. This made Dr. Francois Desruelles, MD, wonder about the relationship between grooming downstairs and the spread of MCV.  

“Pubic hair removal is a body modification for the sake of fashion, especially in young women and adolescents, but also growing among men,” writes Desruelles in a letter published online in the British Medical Journal. “Anyway, pubic hair removal may be a risk factor for STMC [sexually transmitted MCV] or perhaps other STIs …”

MCV, a pox virus, spreads by skin-to-skin contact, from sharing items such as towels or clothes, or sexual contact. It causes pearly papules with dimples in the middle. While MCV looks unsightly, it is not painful and often goes away without treatment. Although a few bumps might be an inconvenience, some people develop hundreds of these papules, which can be embarrassing and disfiguring.

After looking at cases of sexually transmitted MCV, Desruelles believes that people are self-inoculating, meaning they are giving themselves pubic MCV from grooming. A person might shave a papule on her leg, for example, and the virus remains on the blade, which transfers it to her lady parts.

This is a common way to spread bacteria or viruses, explains Dr. Robert T. Brodell, MD, a professor and chief of the division of dermatology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. People often spread warts this way.  

“You cut through a wart … and pull [the HPV] along a line so you end up with warts in a line. You have the original wart and nine more.”

Brodell, who did not participate in the study, believes there are a few other reasons why pubic hair grooming might cause the spread of MCV. People may share razors—so one person with MCV might pass it onto his roommate because they used the same razor (ew, people, get your own razors, especially if you are using it to trim your business). Or tiny abrasions from shaving makes it easier to contract MCV from a paramour.   

“You have sexual contact with someone who has it and it is easier to pick up the virus,” Brodell says. He recommends that people abstain from sex with someone who has an outbreak of MCV. If people suspect they have MCV or warts they should shave around the bumps, not through them, he adds.

While grooming likely increases the spread of sexually transmitted MCV, it doesn’t mean we must go au naturel. Brodell notes there is nothing inherent about pubic hair that protects people from MCV or STIs. “The hair itself is not a defensive barrier.”    

Related:

Pubic hair grooming injuries on the rise, researchers find

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When most people think of Botox, they think of how it erases frown lines between the brows and makes crow’s feet disappear. But Botox is more than just a cosmetic fix.

This month, researchers announced that Botox is a more effective treatment than steroids for plantar fasciitis, a condition where the connective tissues on the sole of the foot become inflamed. When doctors inject Botox into the calf muscles it thins them, causing them to pull less on the plantar fascia and reducing the pain.

And last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved Botox to treat overactive bladder, a condition where the muscles of the bladder squeeze, leading to frequent urination and incontinence. Botox relaxes the bladder, reducing the urgency.

 “The mechanism of action is the same. [Botox treats] so many indications and various problems—cosmetic and overactive muscles,” says Dr. Anthony Youn, a plastic surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at William Beaumont School of Medicine. (Youn is also a frequent contributor to NBCNews.com and TODAY.com.) “[It helps] medical conditions where if you relax muscles that condition improves, like headaches or overactive bladders.”

What else can Botox do? Let's find out.

Migraines
For some migraine sufferers, traditional treatments fail and they experience extreme pain. Plastic surgeons, like Dr. Anne Taylor, noticed that some of their patients who used Botox for wrinkles would schedule visits when they felt migraines starting.

“I had been in practice for 15 years before it was released for migraines and I [had patients who said] ‘I have a migraine coming’ and had to come in and get Botox,” explains Taylor an associate professor at the Ohio State University Medical Center. 

While physicians knew that Botox alleviated migraine pain, the FDA only approved its use for headaches in 2010. 

The reason it works is because the nerve fibers take the Botox and the toxin cleaves a protein that is needed to release a neurotransmitter, says F. Michael Cutrer a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic. The neurotransmitter causes the spasms or muscle tightness that causes headaches, wrinkles, or twitches.

“A reasonable percentage of these people were not responsive to [traditional treatment]. I would say 50 to 60 percent show [improvements with Botox]. Some of these people’s lives are completely changed,” Cutrer says.

All Botox treatments, cosmetic or therapeutic, last anywhere from three to six months and most people need several treatments per year.

Sweating
A woman visited Taylor’s office—she needed to get electronic fingerprints for a job she applied to, but every time she attempted the fingerprinting it failed because her digits were slick with sweat. The patient wondered if there was anything Taylor could do. Taylor had been injecting Botox into armpits to treat hyperhidrosis, excessive sweating, so she thought Botox could help.

“[Excessive sweat] is debilitating for the heavy sweaters,” says Taylor. “[Botox] works every time. It’s really fantastic.”

After Taylor injected all the woman’s fingers with Botox, the woman’s hands were noticeably dry and she could successfully get fingerprinted.    

“It works … because it deactivates the nerves that control the sweat glands,” Cutrer says. 

Weight loss
For more than 10 years, Dr. Anthony Kalloo — the Moses and Helen Golden Paulson Professor of Gastroenterology at Johns Hopkins Hospital — has used Botox to treat patients suffering from GI problems where the muscles clench up and spasm. The Botox relaxes the muscles, preventing the twitches. When he injected the Botox in the stomach he noticed something else—the food moves through slower, making a person feel fuller longer, meaning he eats less. He thought this would be a way to encourage weight loss.

“The weight loss is moderate. Patients lose 20 to 30 pounds in four to six months,” he says. Because Botox is reversible he pairs his weight-loss treatment with a plan that includes exercise and healthy eating habits. (It turns out eating less does not shrink the stomach; it’s just a cruel urban legend.)

Kalloo uses an endoscope, a long medical scope that is inserted orally, to inject the stomach from top to bottom with Botox. The procedure takes about 10 minutes and patients are in a twilight sleep, where they can’t feel pain, but aren’t completely unconscious. While he notes a recent research paper found that Botox did not work, previous studies have shown it’s effective (the FDA has yet to approve its use for weight loss). He believes that more work needs to be done, but thinks Botox shows promise.

“We use a noninvasive method like endoscopy to enable a surgery-like result,” he says. “I think that this is the future of weight loss intervention.”  

Square jaws and bulky calf muscles
When some women look in the mirror, they cringe at the sight of their square jaws. While traditional plastic surgery can soften the jaw line, doctors in Asia, and increasingly in the United States, inject Botox in the face to thin the muscles.

“If they feel like their jaws are too square or wide they can narrow the jaw line [with Botox],” says Youn. “The good and bad thing is the results of Botox last anywhere from three to six months.”

Doctors also use it to shrink the calf muscles for those complaining of bulky legs. This might prevent patients from running as fast or jumping as high, but it doesn’t last.

The FDA hasn’t approved Botox for these uses, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are less safe -- for example, using Botox to treat crows’ feet isn’t approved, but is a common treatment.

Hair loss
A few years ago, a woman approached Cutrer of the Mayo Clinic for help. She had suffered from a viral infection and afterward she had areas about the size of quarters on her scalp where she felt extreme pain. When he examined her, he noticed the painful spots were bald. He thought he would try Botox on the areas to see if it alleviated the pain. 

 “The pain went away and the hair re-grew,” he says. “If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it.”

He published a paper about this case in the journal Cephalalgia. 

While Cutrer does not recommend Botox for balding, considering there are many other treatments, he notes that after her Botox therapy stopped, she lost her hair again.

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A study exploring the scientific and social aspects of goose bumps finds that this common form of piloerection is associated with feelings of awe. This physical reaction also cannot be faked.

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The study, published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, helps to explain how a defense mechanism protecting the body from cold also surfaces during moments of wonderment.

"We suggest that goose bumps may be the initial reaction: a blend of fear, surprise and defense, which is displaced by a positive appraisal made even more positive by the contrast from bad to good," co-author Richard Smith told Discovery News.

Goose bumps come at the intersection of our fight-or-flight response, even if the emotional jolt arises from something as seemingly harmless as a musical performance, Smith, a professor in the University of Kentucky's Department of Psychology, explained.

"[The] powerful other has the capacity to harm, but does not, assuming our submissive response," he said. "An initial 'fight' response, after a subsequent positive appraisal, precludes a 'flight' response. This positive response may be made all the stronger by the contrast."

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From a physical standpoint, goose bumps occur when the muscles underneath the skin contract, making the individual's hair stand on end. This is useful for the survival of animals with skin fur or hair, the authors note, since goose bumps aid in the retention of body heat. This explains why we get them when exposed to sudden cold.

Goose bumps are also, however, associated with intense emotional moments.

For the study, researchers had participants keep a four-week journal making detailed entries each time they experienced goose bumps and rating their feelings during such moments.

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Awe was the second most-cited response as a cause of goose bumps, followed by reactions to cold. The intensity of goose bumps was also positively correlated with awe, but negatively correlated with envy.

The absence of goose bumps with envy is notable, since both awe and envy are emotions that can result from observing, or otherwise experiencing, a powerful other. Awe, however, should stabilize social hierarchies while envy should undermine them.

Jonathan Haidt, a professor of business ethics at the NYU Stern School of Business, along with colleague Dacher Keltner, has extensively studied awe. This feeling may have its origins in the emotional reactions to powerful, and thus potentially dangerous, leaders, explained Haidt, who told Discovery News that the latest findings about awe and goose bumps make sense.

"The fear aspect may be, in part, what connects awe with goose bumps, in addition to a general effect of there being a rush of emotion," Smith said.

"Following the local evolutionary psychologists, and the thinking of Haidt and Keltner, we emphasize the adaptive nature of social hierarchies, which arguably can only operate successfully if subordinates are willing to be submissive in the presence of the more powerful," Smith added. "If goose bumps foster awe in response to powerful others, which means a positive appraisal, then they work to support social hierarchies."

Other research links goose bumps to the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, tied to the fight-or-flight reaction. Such an emotional rush can affect cerebral blood flow associated with reward, motivation and arousal. Since the reaction is akin to a mental reflex, awe-triggered goose bumps cannot be faked.

Goose bumps are then like a natural lie detector test. Truthfully sharing our experiences with them can have the added benefit of strengthening bonds with others. 

Related: 

• We think guys with shaved heads are tougher, study says
• Chinese weightlifter's hairy mole: Everything you never wanted to know
• What 25 years of driving a truck can do to your skin

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Slideshow: Bald and beautiful

EPA. AP

Launch slideshow

Sometime in his late 30s, after his hair had been thinning for several years, Dr. Albert Mannes decided to shave what was left of his mane. He then noticed a curious thing: "Strangers were more standoffish, more deferential," he recalls.

"I found that people treated me differently once I started shaving my head, which made me wonder whether my experience was unique," says Mannes.

This led Mannes, a lecturer at the Wharton School, at the University of Pennsylvania, to design three experiments that tested other people's perception of men with shaved heads. His findings appear in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

All three studies found similar results: A man's shorn scalp was linked with dominance. In other words, men with shaved heads were perceived as powerful by others.

It seems that closely cropped or bald domes have a certain manly swagger to them that project a powerful look.

In the first study, 59 college students looked at 25 photographs of men enrolled in a business school program. Ten of the men had shaved heads while the rest wore their hair in various styles and lengths.

Volunteers rated the photos of men with shorn scalps as more dominant, meaning they looked more powerful, influential, and authoritative than those with a full head of hair.

In a second experiment, 344 adults were shown photographs of four different men. One photo was of the man's real hair and a second shot of him had been digitally altered to remove all of it.

Adults rated men with the digitally shaved heads as more dominant than his coiffed counterpart, an effect researchers say was largely due to perceiving men with shorn scalps as having more confidence and masculinity.

In addition, men without much hair were viewed as nearly an inch taller and 13 percent stronger than men with plenty of it. Although a shaved head had its advantages, men were rated as less attractive and looking nearly four years older than guys with full heads of hair.

Why is a nearly bare head perceived as more dominant? Mannes offers three explanations.

For one, he points to stereotypes. "Shaved heads are found in American culture in traditionally masculine professions, such as the military, law enforcement, and sports," Mannes explains.

A second is that a man who shaves his head is viewed as unconventional. And there's some evidence that the powerful are less inhibited about violating conventional norms, he says.

Finally, Mannes suggests that since "Society places such a high aesthetic value on hair, it takes confidence for a man to dispense with it."

In a third experiment, no photographs were used and more than 500 adults rated their perception of a man based solely on a written physical description of him. All volunteers read the exact same profile except for the description of his hair, which portrayed him as having thick brown hair, thinning brown hair, or a shaved head.

The man described as having a shaved head was rated highest in dominance, masculinity, leadership potential, and strength. The guy with thick tresses scored higher for attractiveness than a shorn scalp and slightly higher on confidence.

The dude with thinning hair scored the lowest on every trait except for norm violation. 

"Men with thinning hair may improve their self-esteem and how they are perceived by others by shaving," Mannes suggests.

He advises men who are getting sparse on top "to stop fighting Mother Nature and try the shaved look."

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AP Photo/Mike Groll

Zhang Jie of China reacts while competing during the men's 62-kg weightlifting competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 30, 2012, in London.

What's the most shocking sight in the Olympics so far?  It’s not Michael Phelps failing to medal in the 400 IM.  Nor is it Jordyn Weiber getting eliminated from the gymnastics all-around finals. 

The most shocking sight to me is Chinese weightlifter Zhang Jie’s big, hairy facial mole.

Zhang sports a mole on the side of his chin that must measure at least half an inch in diameter.  Long, wiry, black hair protrudes from it, resembling the whiskers of a cat. 

As a plastic surgeon, I recommend that he have the mole removed.  It resembles a congenital hairy nevus, which carries a 0.8-4.9 percent risk of turning into skin cancer. The best treatment for moles like this is surgical excision. 

So why hasn’t Zhang had it cut off? 

Even more important, why doesn’t he clip those hairs?

According to the Chinese Fortune Calendar, dark moles are often considered good luck. Hairy moles signify even better luck than bald ones, as they are regarded as healthier. This belief may actually be supported medically: Cancerous moles often lose their hair, as the cancer cells invade the hair follicle, causing the hair shafts to fall out.  Therefore, hairy moles are considered less likely to be cancerous than non-hairy ones.

So was Zhang’s congenital hairy nevus good luck? 

Not really. Although he was the favorite to win the 62-kilogram competition, Zhang ended up placing fourth. 

Time to call the plastic surgeon.   

Dr. Anthony Youn is a Michigan-based cosmetic surgeon and frequent NBCNews.com and TODAY.com contributor. He is the author of the book "In Stitches," a humorous memoir about becoming a doctor. 

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We've all had those fuzzy mornings where we've nearly brushed our teeth with Neosporin, but a new study presented at an annual meeting of epidemiologists has found that prison inmates are purposefully misusing over-the-counter topical antibiotics as grooming aids.

The study, which asked 822 inmates at two New York State prisons about their use of OTC antibiotics such as Bacitracin (an ingredient found in Neosporin), found that 29 percent of the men and 28 percent of the women had used the ointment for dry skin, 18 percent of men and 15 percent of women had used it as a lip balm, 8 percent of men and 3 percent of women had used it as hair gel and 6 percent of men had slathered the ointment onto their face as a shaving cream.

"I think one reason they used the antibiotic ointments in these ways is because they didn't know they shouldn't," says Carolyn Herzig, a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and lead author of the study. "Or it might be that they didn't have easy access to other products."

Misuse or overuse of antibiotics is worrisome because it can lead to strains of antimicrobial resistant pathogens resulting in the emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms such as MRSA, a strain of staph infection that's now resistant to methicillin, amoxicillin, penicillin, oxacillin, and many other antibiotics.

These pathogens are already a problem in prisons, and the "misuse of antibiotics in these facilities might exacerbate this issue," Herzig explains.

"We don't know specifically whether the overuse of topical antibiotics would lead to MRSA -- we don't have the data to demonstrate that -- but in many cases, in general, the overuse and misuse of antibiotics can lead to antibiotic resistance," says Herzig. "That's exactly what the concern is."

Herzig and her team of researchers tapped prison inmates as they were being admitted to two New York State maximum security prisons -- one men's and one women's. (The researcher declined to reveal the names of the prisons.)

"The question we asked was, 'Have you used antibiotic ointment in the past six months?'" she says. "They were entering the prison facilities from either jails or prisons or possibly, the community. If they served a sentence longer than six months, then they had used the ointments in other prisons or in county lockup. It's also possible that some of them used the ointments while they were not incarcerated but I would say the majority of them used them while incarcerated."

Medical personnel do dispense antibiotic ointments to inmates as needed; however, other items -- such as hair gel and shaving cream -- are harder to come by, Robin Campbell, press secretary for the New York City Department of Corrections (which includes Rikers Island and other Borough facilities), said in a statement. 

"Facility medical personnel dispense antibiotic creams and ointments, like foot gels, to inmates on an as needed basis," he said in an email. "Although inmates may purchase some personal hygiene products, like shampoo, toothpaste and deodorant, from the facility commissary, shaving cream, lip balm and hair gel are prohibited due to security concerns."

Antibiotic resistance concerns aside -- would a Neosporin-like cream even work as a beauty aid? "I think they probably worked as well as Vaseline," says Herzig. "And I really think if they'd had lotion or Vaseline, that's what they would have used."

The study's findings were presented this week at the 39th Annual Educational Conference and International Meeting of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology in San Antonio, Texas. Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the study was the first of its kind to report on the widespread misuse of topical antibiotics among inmates.

While Herzig says she's been unable to find any studies on the misuse of over-the-counter antibiotic ointments in everyday life, she is curious about inappropriate use of these products in normal populations.

"I've spent a lot of time looking at the literature to see if there's a comparable study that shows how people use these ointments in a community, but I haven't seen anything that reports that information," she says. "I suspect it is happening, though."

Melissa Rowton, a 41-year-old customer service trainer from Seattle, says she's used antibiotic ointments on blemishes before -- although she doesn't do it very often.

"I've used Neosporin for pimples and have a friend who swears by it," says Rowton. "It makes sense when they are often caused by bacteria. I wash and dry my face thoroughly and dab a small amount on any problem area before bed."

Herzig says none of the prisoners who answered the open-ended questionnaire indicated they'd used the antibiotic ointments in this way. However, in addition to using the topical antibiotics as hair gel, moisturizer and lip balm, many said they'd used the products in ways that were closer to their intended use.

"We got many reasons," she says. "Some used them for skin injuries, skin conditions including eczema and acne, fungal infection, or for new tattoos. We're not suggesting people should use antibiotics for all those reasons. But they're more appropriate than using them for lip balm or moisturizer."

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Courtesy of the New England Journal of Medicine

While "tan mom" Patricia Krentcil’s skin illustrates what happens when a person chronically fake bakes, accidental exposure to sunlight can cause as many wrinkles without a person even being aware of it.

An unnamed 69-year-old man visited doctors at Northwestern University and with wrinkles etched into the left side of his face -- the lines are so deep that the left side looks as if it belongs to a man 20 years older, while the right side seems age-appropriate. The startling image appears in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The man worked as a delivery truck driver for 25 years, and over time, the UVA rays shining through the truck window caused severe wrinkling and over-aging. UVA rays, or long wave ultraviolet rays, account for about 95 percent of the UV radiation reaching the Earth from the sun, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation. UVB rays, or short-wave ultraviolet radiation, cause the red blistering of sunburn, and though these rays do not penetrate as deeply as UVA rays, they contribute to the development of skin cancers.

Physicians call these deep lines caused by overexposure to UV rays dermatoheliosis, though most people know it as photoaging, the wrinkling and cracking of skin caused by too much time in the sun (or the tanning bed). During the 25 years the man drove his truck, the UVA rays hitting his skin damaged the epidermis and upper layers of his dermis, where collagen is. Collagen helps make the skin elastic and prevents such crevasses. 

Repeated exposure to UVA rays also thickens the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the epidermis, which protects the body from infection, chemicals, and environmental stresses. This toughening is the body’s way of attempting to protect itself from sun damage.

The physicians, Dr. Jennifer R.S. Gordon and Dr. Joaquin C. Brieva of Northwestern University, note that the driver most likely was exposed to UVA rays, which are less likely to cause cancer than UVB, but do play a role in skin cancers.

"I see photoaging and photodamage every day in clinic, but not so starkly demarcated," Gordon said via email. "Otherwise we typically see symmetric damage. Interestingly, there are some differences in which side of the body skin cancers occur more often on that some people think are attributed to driving habits because they vary based on country, gender, passenger/driver, etc."

The doctors recommended treatment for the driver that involves monitoring him for the development of cancer and prescribing a topical retinoid, which may erase some of the damage. Most people can easily prevent photoaging by slathering on the sunscreen and wearing protective clothing and hats (even if you think you’ll be shaded).

Related:

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Courtesy of Dana Marie Flores

Dana Marie Flores, a 42-year-old mother of two from Phoenix, has struggled with the compulsive urge to pick at her skin for years.

From time to time, everyone picks their skin, whether it's squeezing a pimple or removing peeling skin. But for people with compulsive skin picking, "We just take it to a whole new level," says Dana Marie Flores, who has struggled with this disorder for 30 years.

Flores started by picking at pimples on her face when she was 12 or 13. She'd spend hours with her face an inch away from the bathroom mirror picking at any acne bumps she saw and using her pinky fingernails to squeeze out the pus.

To her, picking served a useful purpose. "When I first started to pick, it was self-soothing," admits Flores.  "If something came out [like pus], it's affirmation that something was in my skin." There was a feeling of satisfaction and relief.

Flores said picking at her face then evolved to picking at any bump she'd find on her arms or legs. "I'd think of it as fixing a problem, removing an ingrown hair, evening things out on my skin," she recalls.

When doing it, Flores says her mind enters a trance-like state. "It's really an escape, like a drug. It's so self-soothing you lose track of time," she explains.

Although the urge to pick is incredibly strong and it can seem hard to fight, the 42-year-old mother of two from Phoenix eventually recognized her behavior was "a grooming habit gone terribly wrong."

Compulsive or pathological skin picking, which is also known as dermatillomania, falls under the umbrella of a "body-focused repetitive behavior," says Dr. Ted Grosbart, PhD, a Boston-based clinical psychologist who specializes in dermatology.

People with this impulse-control disorder have a strong urge to pick at their skin over and over again to a significant enough degree that it does noticeable tissue damage and they experience it as a problem, Grosbart explains.

He says the condition, which is more common in women, has a genetic basis. And there's often an emotional stressor or hormonal trigger (like puberty), which touches it off.

"Skin picking is not a character flaw, and it's not a bad habit," Grosbart points out. "It's a real medical condition with a biochemical underpinning." Researchers are also noticing slight variations in brain structure and function in people with the condition.

According to Grosbart, skin picking is a "hidden epidemic." "We used to think it affects 3 to 4 percent of the population, but the latest studies suggest the lifetime incidence may be closer to 15 to 16 percent," he says.

Sufferers may at first rationalize the picking as a type of skin care but it then crosses the line into a form of skin abuse.

"The shame is huge," says Flores. "You assume you're the only person doing this, and you feel like a freak.

"The shame felt is often more damaging than the physical damage done to the skin," she adds.

Many skin pickers feel so ashamed they hide the behavior from their family members, spouses and friends. They conceal any scabs under clothing, or by wearing Band-Aids, or with makeup.

They might pick skin in less noticeable places, like the scalp or chewing the insides of their mouths. Or they make up excuses: A bad reaction to a new medication or an attack by mosquitoes.

If they finally open up and confide in someone, that person may have difficulty understanding why pickers just can't stop.

As Flores put it, "The 'just-stop theory' sounds great." But your skin is always available and you can't exactly get away from it, she says.

Flores makes the analogy that the strong temptation to pick her skin is like being a recovering alcoholic with hundreds of bottles of beer and booze tied to your body. With 24/7 access to her skin, picking is an easy behavior to fall into when she feels angry or stressed.

Flores' path toward healing began seven years ago when she saw a TV news story about people who compulsively pull out their hair, or trichotillomania. The story referred her to a website for the Trichotillomania Learning Center, a nonprofit educational organization, where she finally discovered information about skin picking.

"After 23 years of doing this, I could not believe there were other people out there like me," admits Flores. She joined a local support group, attends their annual retreats, and serves on their Board to help get the word out. 

She's learned new tools for keeping her hands busy -- playing with bubble wrap to give her the same tactile sensation of popping pimples -- to help curb the behavior. Still, it remains an ongoing struggle to battle the impulse.

"I don't base my recovery on how my skin looks, but on how I feel inside," Flores says. "And that has changed 1,000 percent."

Related:

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Getty Images

Rookie Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals is a polarizing figure in baseball today, mostly due to his attitude. But recent discoveries in social psychology suggest our perceptions of Harper may be shaped by something a little hairier: the kid's facial hair.

Rookie Bryce Harper, all of 19 years old, has such a poor rep already in Major League Baseball that Cole Hamels felt justified in hitting him with a fastball, and then bragging about it afterwards, as Jelisa Castrodale of NBCSports.com points out.

Apparently there could be a number of reasons to explain the visceral reaction to Harper, including a propensity toward arrogance. But could the kid’s facial hair have anything to do with it?

Sounds bizarre, but maybe.

Last January, in the journal Behavioral Ecology, two researchers, Barnaby Dixson of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and Paul Vasey, of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, released a study on reactions to men’s beards.

They pointed out that beard growth is under genetic control, and that it may serve as a sexual signal between men. In tests, women in both Samoa and in New Zealand did not rate bearded men as any more attractive than the same men pictured without beards, so beards weren’t helping the guys get girls. But other men (women, too) viewed bearded male faces as more threatening when the pictured males adopted an angry look.

Facial hair, the authors wrote “may intimidate rival males by increasing perceptions of the size of the jaw, overall length of the face, and by enhancing aggressive and threatening jaw-thrusting behaviors ... . The current study is the first to show that the beard augments a threatening behavioral display as bearded men with angry facial expressions received significantly higher scores for aggressiveness compared with clean-shaven faces ... . This suggests that the beard plays an important role in intermale signaling of threat and aggression.”

Other, past studies, have shown that when mock juries are presented with pictures of men accused of crimes like rape, the juries are much more likely to believe the bearded man is guilty. A 2004 study from researchers at Montclair State University in New Jersey asked 371 people to “sketch the face of a criminal offender. Eighty-two percent of the sketches contained some form of facial hair.” Yet beards have often been seen a sign of maturity, education, and competence. So what’s up?

A man’s facial features have been shown to reflect both his androgen status -- how much testosterone and related hormones he’s making -- and physical strength. Beards, themselves dependant upon androgens, can frame and accentuate those features.

This could be positive. “Both men and women ascribe positive attributes such as intelligence, courage, confidence and social maturity to beards,” Dixson explained in an email. But in his study, he included the angry expressions, and then, the beards made the men look threatening and meaner than when the same men were clean shaven.

So it’s all the above, suggested Dixson. “Beards appear to be linked with perceptions of elevated age (maturity), social status, dominance and threatening facial displays.”

Whether or not it’s deliberate strategy, the rash of beards among athletes, most famously Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants, is one way to intimidate the opposition. The callow Harper is just playing along.  

Brian Alexander (www.BrianRAlexander.com) is co-author, with Larry Young PhD., of "The Chemistry Between Us: Love Sex and the Science of Attraction," (www.TheChemistryBetweenUs.com)  to be published Sept. 13.

Related: 

• Why not fix that receding hairline with some leg hair?
• Genetic mutation may explain mysterious blond Solomon Islanders
• Science of the silver fox: Why hair goes gray

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Yikes!

That’s was the reaction of many of our readers after seeing burnt-to-a-crisp New Jersey mom Patricia Krentcil, who made news after authorities arrested her for taking her 5-year-old daughter to a tanning salon to tan, a claim she denies.

Krentcil does admit that she enjoys tanning -- perhaps a bit too much -- but all those hours in UV light have likely damaged the collagen in Krentcil's skin, causing her leathery, brown visage. 

“That’s a result of chronic exposure, which causes darkening of the skin,” says Dr. Shannon Campbell, clinical assistant professor of general dermatology and cutaneous oncology at The Ohio State University James Cancer Center. 

While many people just desire a bronze color, a tan is actually the body’s way of protecting itself. “Why is she so dark?  Tanning is a protective mechanism that the body has and it is sign of skin damage if the body tans. That explains why her skin is so dark,” says Campbell.

TODAY

New Jersey mom Patricia Krentcil is denying charges of child endangerment after taking her 5-year-old daughter to a tanning salon. But what many msnbc.com readers couldn't help but focus on was her leathery visage.

Collagen, which is in the dermis, the second layer of the skin, gives the skin its elasticity. Collagen keeps skin strong and elastic, but as it lessens due to age or UV damage, the skin sustains cracks or wrinkles. It’s what makes skin pliable and the less one has, the more wrinkles occur. That's what's causing Krentcil to look prematurely aged and leathery (she's 44, but could easily pass as a Golden Girl). 

And tanning — especially indoor tanning — causes more than just hideous looks. Campbell says that people who use tanning beds are 2.5 times more likely to develop squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) and 1.5 times more likely to develop basal cell carcinomas (BCC). Someone with such a tanning history would also suffer from a weakened immune system (people often develop cold sores after tanning) and an increased chance of getting cataracts and ocular melanoma, a rare and often overlooked eye cancer caused by overexposure to UV light.

Krentcil's excessive tanning has focused attention on "tanorexia," a habit that research indicates can be as addictive as alcohol or smoking. A small study from 2006 found that when people who compulsively sunbathe -- whether in a tanning booth or outdoors -- stop, they can feel withdrawal symptoms from their UV high. And an earlier msnbc.com story reported that many teen girls hit the tanning salon for the first time with mom. Researchers from East Tennessee state University found that nearly 40 percent of young women, ages 18 to 30, who participated in a small study said their first experience with indoor tanning was with their mother.

Whether someone is hooked on rays -- artificial or real -- the World Health Organization classifies ultraviolet radiation as a known carcinogen, Dr. Jennifer Ashton, author of "Your Body Beautiful," told TODAY Thursday. "They put it on the same level as cigarettes, on the same level as plutonium. So it's dangerous."  

But there is hope for Krentcil. If she stops tanning her skin might lighten and different treatments could repair her collagen, leading to a more youthful appearance. Yet, Krentcil will probably always be at higher risk for cancer:

“To a degree the damage has already been done,” Campbell says. 

More from The Body Odd:

• Taking a skin allergy and making it art
• Here's what a lightning strike can do to your skin

Related:
For teens, 'tanorexia' starts with mom
Women with melanoma fare better than men

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.