Mom Was Right: You'll Catch a Cold from Being Cold

"Put on a jacket or you'll catch a cold." Countless energetic children are told this every day as they zoom outside for playtime. But as kids grow up, this bit of advice is usually dismissed as an age-old, superstitious epithet. A virus, not the temperature, is what makes us sick, right? Well yes. But it turns out mom's advice contains a kernel of truth too. Yale researchers studying the rhinovirus -- the common cold virus -- have found a link between temperature and our body's ability t