Why Do You Get Sick In The Winter Blame Your Nose
This precious mucus contains tiny extracellular vesicles—nano-sized lipid spheres—that may be critical to combating viruses like those that cause the common cold. In work recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Bleier, along with Mansoor Amiji, a chemist at Northeastern University, determined that during viral infection, cells in the nose release a swarm of these vesicles to fight off pathogens. Critically, the scientists found that in colder temperatures this antiviral release is impaired—which could explain why colds and other upper respiratory infections become more common in the winter....