Is your birthday linked to luck?

Are people with certain birthdays more likely to pick winners?

Are you born lucky? Scientists are trying to find out if your birthday determines how successful you are.

Participants in the study, launched this week by Professor Richard Wiseman at the Edinburgh Science Festival, will fill in a web questionnaire.

He hopes the answers will reveal how people's personalities relate to the month in which they are born.

Professor Wiseman - who believes luck and success are linked - will publish his findings later this month.

SPRING/SUMMER BABIES Tony Blair - May David Beckham - May Jonny Wilkinson - May Michael Howard - July

The professor has carried out other studies which suggest luck and success are closely linked because lucky people generate their own good fortune.

He suggests they do this by being skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, making lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

People logging on to the online test will be asked to give their birth date, then to say how 12 statements apply to them, with answers ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

'Illness linked to winter birth'

Professor Wiseman told BBC News Online the answers would help identify how extrovert and positive people born in certain months were.

Some of the statements in the test include:

• In general, I am a lucky person; that is, I tend to experience,
• I do not have a tendency to worry and feel anxious about life,
• I don't tend to dwell on the things that haven't worked out well for me in the past
• I sometimes chat to strangers when standing in a supermarket or bank queue

Previous research found babies born in winter are more likely to suffer from conditions including schizophrenia.

AUTUMN/WINTER BABIES Tim Henman - September Charles Kennedy - November Home Office Minister Beverly Hughes - March John Major - March

Professor Wiseman said: "There is a biological theory to do with infection, which suggests it might be healthier to be born in a hotter month.

"Another theory is linked to diet, and suggests that mothers eat different foods in summer and winter.

"There is also a social theory, which suggests children born in certain months might do better in school because they are the oldest in their year."

Professor Wiseman's study will also examine if people born on the 13th of the month are unluckier than people born on other days.

He said the research was not linked to astrology, but admitted the findings could help suggest personality traits for star signs.

"It might be possible to say 'that person has got the personality of a Leo or a Capricorn'."

The Born Lucky experiment is at http://www.luckfactor.co.uk.