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.

By Brian Alexander

It may seem counterintuitive to those males among us who spent more time in high school reading Dickens or studying calculus than we did making out with Stephanie the cheerleader, but a group of researchers has issued a study finding that higher IQ men have better sperm.

Take that, Mr. Quarterback.

But before the pocket protector set starts strutting in their Radiohead T-shirts, hang on a minute. As interesting and possibly important to a certain subgroup of scientists as the study may be, it says much more about our obsession with grading our masculinity than it does about brains and sperm.

The point of the study was to test a theory about “fitness factor,” explained lead author Rosalind Arden of King’s College, London. Fitness factor, according to the researchers, involves the clues, such as waist-to-hip ratios, that signal we have good genes in general and will produce tip-top babies.

By JoNel Aleccia

Before she got so sick with a Clostridium difficile infection, Vicki Doriott would have been as disgusted as anyone at the idea of a fecal transplant.

Infuse her gut with someone else’s stool? Through a tube in her nose? No, thanks.

But in June 2004, Doriott was actually relieved to show up at a Duluth, Minn., clinic, where doctors sent samples of her husband’s excrement sliding into her stomach – and apparently cured the infection that threatened to ruin her life.

“When those toxins are in your body, you kind of feel like you’re close to death,” said Doriott, 50, an accountant from Eau Claire, Wis., who spent nearly six months battling recurrent bouts of the nasty intestinal bug known as C. diff. “Nothing else I tried worked.”