Ask Well: Can You Get Two Colds at Once?

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Supported by Well | Live Can You Get Two Colds at Once? Photo Credit iStock Q. Can I get two colds at once?
A. Yes, you can. The phenomenon is known medically as coinfection and occurs when two germs, in this case viruses, cause infections at the same time.
More than 100 viruses can cause the common cold, so it’s not unusual to be exposed to two at once. And, since one virus doesn’t typically confer immunity against the other, it’s not unusual to be infected by two viruses at once.
The best data about coinfection come from studies of more serious viruses, such as H.I.V. and hepatitis. These studies show that coinfection can worsen, ameliorate or have no impact on the course of an illness. The outcome depends on the viruses involved.
With H.I.V., coinfection with the two main types, H.I.V.-1 and H.I.V.-2, is actually beneficial. It slows the progression of the disease. Coinfection with H.I.V. and hepatitis C virus, on the other hand, worsens the outcome.
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How Not to Get Sick on a Plane? Choose Your Seat Wisely

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Supported by Well | Live How Not to Get Sick on a Plane? Choose Your Seat Wisely Photo Credit iStock How likely is it that you will catch the flu on a fully packed airplane during flu season?
According to a new study, not very likely.
But a lot depends on who else is sitting in your row, and the row in front and in back of you. It also depends on whether you use the airplane’s bathroom, what you touch and how carefully you wash your hands.
Flu is most commonly transmitted by small respiratory droplets that move through the air when an infected person sneezes, coughs or talks. The droplets don’t go especially far — typically six feet or so — and they don’t become suspended in an aerosol that travels through currents of air in the plane’s cabin, where they could be breathed in. The flu virus can also be picked up from something an infected person touched.
For the study, the research team took five round-trip flights from Atlanta to West Coast cities, four of them during the flu seas..

Julie Yip-Williams, Writer of Candid Blog on Cancer, Dies at 42

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Supported by Obituaries Julie Yip-Williams, Writer of Candid Blog on Cancer, Dies at 42 Photo Julie Yip-Williams in a family photograph at her home in Brooklyn in January. “Rejoice in life and all of its beauty,” she told her children. Julie Yip-Williams, whose candid blog about having Stage IV colon cancer also described a life of struggles that began with being born blind in Vietnam and her ethnic Chinese family’s escape in a rickety fishing boat, died on Monday at her home in Brooklyn. She was 42.
Joshua Williams, her husband, said the cause was metastatic colon cancer.
Ms. Yip-Williams’s richly detailed blog, which she started writing after receiving her diagnosis in 2013, was more than an account of her siege with cancer. It was also a meditation on love and family as well as a message of openness to her young daughters, Mia and Isabelle, about her illness.
Ms. Yip-Williams wrestled with hope, which she cursed as an “illusory sentiment.”
“Cancer crushes hope, leaving a wastel..

Matter: Was a Tiny Mummy in the Atacama an Alien? No, but the Real Story Is Almost as Strange

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Was a Tiny Mummy in the Atacama an Alien? No, but the Real Story Is Almost as Strange

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Nearly two decades ago, the rumors began: In the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, someone had discovered a tiny mummified alien.
An amateur collector exploring a ghost town was said to have come across a white cloth in a leather pouch. Unwrapping it, he found a six-inch-long skeleton.
Despite its size, the skeleton was remarkably complete. It even had hardened teeth. And yet there were striking anomalies: it had 10 ribs instead of the usual 12, giant eye sockets and a long skull that ended in a point.
Ata, as the remains came to be known, ended up in a private collection, but the rumors continued, fueled in part by a U.F.O. documentary in 2013 that featured the skeleton. On Thursday, a team of scientists presented a very different explanation for Ata — one without aliens, but intriguing in its own way.

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Netflix Adds a Warning Video to ‘13 Reasons Why’

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Supported by Television Netflix Adds a Warning Video to ‘13 Reasons Why’ Photo Katherine Langford in the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” about a teenager who kills herself. Credit Beth Dubber/Netflix, via Associated Press Netflix has added a warning video that will play before its series “13 Reasons Why” and will promote resources to help young viewers and their parents address the show’s themes, the streaming service announced Wednesday.
After being criticized for how the series’ first season depicted suicide, which had already led the network to add warning messages to the show, Netflix commissioned a study by the Northwestern University Center on Media and Human Development to gauge its impact on viewers. The show’s second season will be released this year.
According to a statement from Netflix, the study showed that “nearly three-quarters of teen and young adult viewers said the show made them feel more comfortable processing tough topics.”
However, the results also showed th..

John Cacioppo, Who Studied Effects of Loneliness, Is Dead at 66

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Supported by Obituaries John Cacioppo, Who Studied Effects of Loneliness, Is Dead at 66 Photo John and Stephanie Cacioppo, partners in marriage and neuroscience, at the University of Chicago in 2017. Credit Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times She was a brain researcher and an authority on the scientific basis of love. He, too, was a neuroscientist, but with an expertise in loneliness. She was in her mid-30s, he in his late 50s.
Both were wedded to careers in separate hemispheres — until they happened to be seated beside each other, serendipitously, at dinner on the last night of a neuroscience research symposium in Shanghai.
Before going their separate ways, they left the restaurant together. A romantic full moon was rising over the East China Sea. He snapped a photograph. A few weeks later, she emailed him to request a copy (which she later admitted was just a pretext to resume their brief acquaintance).
She, Stephanie Ortigue, was conducting research at the University of Ge..