Hacker News Reader

Comment by danohuiginn | Hacker News Reader

Superstitions about drafts are bizarrely common. Bosnians, for example, tend to be terrified of "propuh", or cross drafts. If you leave windows open on either side of a building, you risk any malady up to and including paralysis.

I find it hard to understand how such beliefs get started, or manage to remain so prevalent.

View on HN

In The Netherlands (not sure if that's specified to my country or to people in general) I often hear people saying that you shouldn't go outside without a jacket when it's cold, because it will make you sick...

This is common in Canada (from experience) and probably the US (from watching American TV).

It's actually a common misconception for most of the Western world, I think. It's really a misunderstanding between getting cold (hypothermia, in the worst case) and catching a cold, which is a virus.

It probably doesn't help that people spend more time inside in close quarters during cold weather.

I've heard this in the US, UK, Sweden, Japan... it seems like a universal misconception.

That one's actually probably correct. http://www.nature.com/news/cold-viruses-thrive-in-frosty-con...

> A team from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that low temperatures dampen natural defences against rhinoviruses, the leading causes of seasonal colds, in mice and in human airway cells.

Is that the air temperature or body temperature? Your body thermoregulates and won't change temperature based on what you're wearing until you're experiencing hyper/hypothermia

Its very easy to understand how it gets started, its just weird that people hang onto them, and it is the same reason people burned witches.

1. Something uneventful thing happens (a guy likes to leave his windows open) 2. He gets cancer and dies 3. Cross drafts are clearly the problem

People are absurd.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com