Thank a Virus Today, They Pretty Much Are Responsible for Keeping You Alive

Give it a look. Our view of viruses is built primarily around what we see and experience of them as humans: IE they make you sick, scare the crap out of the media, and perhaps turn you into zombies (ok, not that one. As far as you know...) Still, it's important to keep in mind that we're surrounded by them all the time, and many of them perform important functions. For instance, without some of the viruses discussed in this article, no rain clouds. You know, those aren't important. Who needs rain?

Want to Avoid the Flu? Go Get A Cold...apparently.

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=19354

So here's an article I found through another blog that claims to show a correlation between the rise in the presence of rhinoviruses (that cause the common cold) and the decrease in flu in Sweeden during spring of last year. While it's tempting to jump on the bandwagon here, this is ultimately just correlation. It's important to keep in mind that the climate is changing as well, potentially leading to changes that could make transmission more favorable for one virus and less for another. Also, despite some assertions at the top of the intro, we don't even really have a clear understanding of the cause for why seasonal flu is seasonal, and what effect weather and humidity have on flu transmission. There needs to be more experiments done to continue with this line of research, and this is just a posting of a hypothesis, but I thought it was sort of interesting and so I'm reposting it here.