Tears are secretions that clean and lubricate the eyes. Lacrimation or lachrymation (from Latin lacrima, meaning "tear") is the production or shedding of tears.

Strong emotions such as sorrow or elation, awe, pleasure, irritation of the eyes, laughing, and yawning may lead to an increased production of tears, or crying.

In humans, the tear film coating the eye, known as the precorneal film, has three distinct layers, from the most outer surface:

Having a thin tear film may prevent one's ability to wear contact lenses, as the amount of oxygen needed is higher than normal, and contact lenses stop oxygen from entering the eye. Eyes with thin tear film will dry out while wearing contact lenses. Special eye drops are available for contact lens wearers. Certain types of contact lenses are designed to let more oxygen through to the eye.

The lacrimal glands secrete lacrimal fluid, which flows through the main excretory ducts into the space between the eyeball and lids. When the eyes blink, the lacrimal fluid is spread across the surface of the eye. Lacrimal fluid gathers in the lacrimal lake, and is drawn into the puncta by capillary action, then flows through the lacrimal canaliculi at the inner corner of the eyelids entering the lacrimal sac, then on to the nasolacrimal duct, and finally into the nasal cavity. An excess of tears, as with strong emotion, can thus cause the nose to run. [1]

Cassadee Blake Pope (born August 28, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and musician and the lead vocalist of the pop punk band Hey Monday. With the band she has released a studio album, Hold on Tight and three extended plays. She went solo after Hey Monday's hiatus which was announced in December 2011, but reassured fans that the band was not "broken up." In early 2012 she played her first acoustic solo tour.

Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Keys was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano. She attended Professional Performing Arts School and graduated at 16 as valedictorian. Keys released her debut album with J Records, having had previous record deals first with Columbia and then Arista Records.

Keys' debut album, Songs in A Minor, was a commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. She became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B artist of 2001. The album earned Keys five Grammy Awards in 2002, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Fallin'". Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and was also another success worldwide, selling eight million copies. The album garnered her an additional four Grammy Awards in 2005. Later that year, she released her first live album, Unplugged, which debuted at number one in the United States. She became the first female to have an MTV Unplugged album to debut at number one and the highest since Nirvana in 1994.

Gary Jules (born March 19, 1969 as Gary Jules Aguirre, Jr.) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his cover version of the Tears For Fears classic "Mad World", which Gary recorded with friend Michael Andrews for the film Donnie Darko. It became the UK Christmas Number One single of 2003. Since then, Gary's version has been used on popular American TV shows, in a commercial for the critically acclaimed video game Gears of War, an episode of CSI: Las Vegas, and a Season 5 episode of the medical drama House.

Some of Gary's early projects/bands were The Ivory Knights, Our Town Pansies, Woodenfish, Kofi, The Origin, Invisible, No poetry, and Heroes and Heroin.^{[citation needed]} Gary's 2003 residency at the Los Angeles Hotel Café helped develop the venue as a successful singer/songwriter venue for other artists such as Gary.

Broderick Steven "Steve" Harvey (born January 17, 1957) is an American entertainer and author who hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, and Family Feud. He is the author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which was published in March 2009, and the book Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find and Keep a Man.

He's been an actor, comedian, entertainer, television and radio personality and best-selling author. He starred in The Steve Harvey Show, and he was featured in The Original Kings of Comedy. He also hosts the Steve Harvey Project, on an extended cable channel.

Harvey was born in Welch, West Virginia, the son of Eloise and Jesse Harvey, a coal miner. His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he graduated from Glenville High School in 1974. Shortly after high school he attended Kent State University and West Virginia University and is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He has been a boxer, an insurance salesman, and a mailman.

Steve Harvey first performed stand-up comedy on October 8, 1985 at the Hilarities Comedy Club in Cleveland, Ohio. He was a finalist in Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search in 1989, eventually leading to a long stint as host of It's Showtime at the Apollo, succeeding Mark Curry in that role. His success as a stand-up comedian led to a starring role on the ABC show Me and the Boys in 1994. He would later star on the WB network show, The Steve Harvey Show, which ran from 1996 to 2002. While wildly popular in the African-American community (the show won multiple NAACP Image Awards), the show never achieved critical acclaim outside of the African-American community, a matter about which Harvey has often complained.