By Bill Briggs

We are our fingerprints.

From the loops on our thumbs to the whorls on our pinky toes, no human shares the same delicate swoops on the skin of our palms and feet. But those inimitable wrinkles on our digits didn’t develop just to let us access keyless doors, or bust us for being at the scene of a crime. What is the biological purpose of those tiny, raised crinkles?

It’s long been thought that the distinct skin patterns reduce surface friction when we’re grasping or holding objects — that the the friction improves our grip. However, British researchers have found that fingerprints actually make it more difficult for people and primates to grip and hold flat, smooth things.

By Diane Mapes

It’s hard enough for anybody to find love, but what do you do if you have a genetic disorder that leaves you completely covered with hair?

In the case of circus star Larry Ramos Gomez, better known as “Wolfboy,” you get your own reality dating show. At least that’s the plan hatched by Zoo Productions, creators of such reality TV fare as “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” and “Girls Behaving Badly.”

Recently divorced, the 31-year-old Mexican, who performs daredevil acrobat acts with his brother Danny, suffers from an extremely rare form of hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that causes excessive hair growth in places you wouldn’t normally expect it, such as the face.

The reality show, tentatively titled “Wolfboy: Divorced and Looking for Love,” will document Gomez’ search for a girlfriend and his quest to find acceptance as a normal guy.

By Diane Mapes

Spring is here and with it the traditional sounds of allergy season: Sniffling, sneezing, wheezing and “honking.”

But while nearly 35 million Americans cope with everyday allergens like pollen, dust mites or pet dander, there are some itchy souls who suffer from more unusual triggers – nail polish, cockroaches and iPods, to name a few.

“Women will come in with redness on the lids of their eyes,” says Dr. Beth Corn, assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. That’s a telltale sign of nail polish allergy – triggered by a fairly common reaction to the ingredient toluene sulphonamide formaldehyde resin. “I’ll tell them they’re allergic to nail polish and they’ll be shocked. But fingers touch your face a lot, particularly your eyes.”

By Diane Mapes

AC/DC guitarist Angus Young may pretend his index fingers are devil’s horns in live concerts, but human beings have actually been known to sprout a horn or two.

Called cutaneous horns (cutaneous is Latin for “of the skin”), these growths occur when the surface of the skin thickens, usually in response to some type of disease.

Sometimes the diseased or damaged layer of skin can blister or become white and scaly, similar in appearance to a psoriasis outbreak. Or it can become as thick as the hide of an elephant or a rhinoceros.

By Diane Mapes

Misheard song lyrics, sometimes referred to as mondegreens are incredibly common, often hilarious, and always a crowd pleaser, judging by the number of stories, Web sites and water cooler chatter devoted to the topic.

But while we can all point to common misinterpreted lyrics (think “wrapped up like a douche” from Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light”), most of us don’t really know exactly why it happens.

A new study by Dr. Wei Ji Ma, assistant professor of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Tex., may finally reveal why so many of us think Freddie Mercury is singing “Beelzebub has a devil for a son named Steve” in Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

By Kavita Varma-White

We all know about embarrassing pregnancy ailments. The gas attacks. Memory lapses. Hemorrhoids. Don’t even get me started on the backaches. But have you heard about the horrific rashes?

Luckily, my first pregnancy was pretty perfect. I didn’t have any problems – no morning sickness or gestational diabetes or excessive weight gain – and I delivered a beautiful, healthy, 7-pound baby girl.

But all hell broke loose a few days after I came home from the hospital and was settling into the normal-but-exhausting routine of breast-feeding and not sleeping.

By Diane Mapes

While a 92-year-old woman delivering a 60-year-old baby sounds like a bizarre plot twist from “Benjamin Button,” it’s true. Huang Yijun, 92, of southern China, recently delivered a child which she’d been carrying for well over half a century.

The baby wasn’t actually alive, however. The woman was carrying a lithopedion—or stone baby — a rare phenomenon where a pregnancy fails, the fetus calcifies while still in the mother’s body.

According to Dr. Natalie Burger, endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Texas Fertility Center, lithopedions start off as ectopic pregnancies—a condition where the fertilized egg gets stuck on its way to the womb, implants and develops outside the uterus.

“Usually an ectopic pregnancy will mean a [fallopian] tubal pregnancy, but in a small percentage of cases, the pregnancy can actually occur in the abdominal cavity — in places like the bowel, the ovary, or even on the aorta,” she says. “These are very rare locations and they can be very dangerous.”

By Diane Mapes

With the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the left has taken over the White House yet again – just as it did with Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Confused? Don’t be. We’re talking hands, not political ideology.

“I’m a lefty. Get used to it,” Obama said as he signed his first official documents on Tuesday, making him the sixth southpaw-in-chief we’ve seen since the end of World War II. Interestingly, his opponent John McCain was also left-handed, as were former presidents Harry Truman and Bill Clinton, former vice presidents Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Wallace and the 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Why are so many lefties in or near the White House?

By Jasmin Aline Persch

You may think some sandwiches are scary – a Wendy’s Baconator, anyone? — but for one young British woman, eating a sandwich really was a dangerous act.

The otherwise healthy 25-year-old from Birmingham, U.K., regularly fainted while eating sandwiches or drinking fizzy sodas. Once while having a bit of grub behind the wheel, the young woman blacked out at a red light. Fortunately, she came to before the signal switched to green.

Having experienced the condition since she was 15, the young woman eventually realized a connection between certain foods and the fainting spells.

When she finally sought medical attention, her doctors didn’t recognize such curious symptoms. They extensively tested her blood, thyroid and pituitary glands, but found nothing unusual. They suspected it was all in her head.

By Diane Mapes

While many men and women have strong opinions about the size of breasts, most would agree the number of their breasts— two— is fine.

Unfortunately, for those with polymastia, that’s not always the case.

Sometimes referred to as accessory breasts, polymastia is the presence of supernumerary (extra) breasts on the human body. The extra breast tissue can appear in many forms, everything from a third nipple (the most common condition, referred to as polythelia) to a fully-formed — and fully-functional breast — in some unusual location. It can also present itself as a breast with a nipple but no areola, a breast with an areola but no nipple, or just a small lump of breast tissue with neither nipple nor areola.

According to a recent article in The American Surgeon, it’s not as rare as you might think. The condition occurs in up to 6 percent of the general population, although it is commonly misdiagnosed, usually as lipoma, a benign tumor composed of fat cells. In a few cases, supernumerary breasts can be diagnosed with breast cancer. Women report a much higher rate of polymastia and polythelia than men, but there have been several reported cases of men with accessory breast tissue. Extra nipples are more common.