This week's Science Friday on NPR covered, among other topics, colds and flu viruses. Here are a couple of other tidbits of information I picked up about the cold virus.
One reason we get more colds in the winter is that the virus survives better at colder tempuratures.
One reason there isn't a "cure" for the common cold is that even if you manage to kill the viruses in your body, you won't get rid of the symptoms. The symptoms of a cold seem to stem from your body's inflamatory response to the virus and once that's underway you just have to ride out the process. You're stuck feeling rotten or taking medication for the symptoms for about two weeks.
Links
These folks found that when a child has a cold, T-cells seem to move from the blood to the airways.
Now you can own your own giant stuffed Rhinovirus
Word Of The Day
Capsomere: the proteins that make up the capsid which is the outside covering of a virus. This is what your immune system uses to recognize and respond to the virus and the capsid also lets us make vaccines to help your body respond to viruses it hasn't encountered. There are just too many different kinds of cold virus to make a good vaccine for it.
4 comments:
I LOVE the plush Rhinovirus toys.
They're so cute. :)
I also love listening to Science Friday on NPR! I missed it last week, though, because my schedule was different than usual.
Question: Why do we call it a "Cold"?
Because "flu" was already taken? :)
I don't even know how to begin answering that question.
There's a guy at the UK science museum who says that they call it a cold because if you told somebody you had the "hots" they might think, "you fancy them".
He also pointed out that they used to think you would catch one if you got too cold. Remember, a few generations back you weren't supposed to bathe in the winter.
So, wait, you're saying it IS ok to bathe in the winter now?
Gosh.
Excuse me for a moment.
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