You have a fever, runny nose, and can't get out of bed. It must be the flu, right? Not necessarily.

When you meet up with a colleague or friend, greetings typically involve some form of physical contact. Be it a handshake, high-five or good ol' fashioned hug, all of them can be pretty dangerous during flu season.

That sneeze in the elevator. The snot somebody wiped on that handrail an hour ago. Your coworker who won't stay home, breathing right next to you. Cold and flu viruses are everywhere. And if you're coming down with something, you're spreading them too.

As we head toward winter, health professionals and the public are anxious about another influenza season like 2017, when record numbers of Australians were diagnosed with flu.

The flu is usually a mild illness that leaves us out of action for a few days. But for some, especially the elderly and children, the flu can be much more severe. In fact, influenza kills more kids than the feared meningococcal infection.

Everyone knows there's no better place to catch the flu than on an aeroplane on your way to that holiday you've been looking forward to for months.

This is the season when we send our kids off to school with shiny new backpacks, and every year, they bring home the same thing: The first round of back-to-school colds. In our house, with a two-year-old intent on drooling on everyone he touches and a six-year-old still perfecting her personal hygiene practices, pathogens are passed out like hugs, and it's only a matter of time before the whole family is sick.

Have you ever wondered why the influenza virus is more potent and dangerous than the common cold virus? They’re both viruses, but what makes the influenza worse that it causes more deaths? Let's take a look at the science...

Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers, including: Sydney's flu outbreak, Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 6 leaks, board games, awesome aerial photography and Aussie scientists continue doing unbelievable things.

Welcome back to Dose of Reality, where we see whether the week's health news is really worth worrying -- or celebrating -- about. Today we're facing down death and disease, and the news is actually mostly good!

If you have a blocked or runny nose, chances are you’ll reach for a tissue or hanky to clear the mucus by having a good blow. But do you go for one nostril or two? Hard blow or gentle? It turns out that some ways are more effective (and less risky) than others.

From vitamin C and echinacea to warm clothes and antibacterial soap, there’s no shortage of ideas about how to prevent and manage colds and flu. Unfortunately, many of these are not based on solid scientific evidence. In fact, medical researchers are only starting to unravel the range of factors that affect our susceptibility to getting an infection. Now we have discovered that our body clock plays an important role – making us more prone to get infected at certain times of the day.

Flu shots work, and are a smart way to reduce the chances that you'll end up sick this winter. But that's not the impression you might get if you listen to the rumour mill. Flu shot myths abound, and it's time to put the biggest ones to rest.

I'm at home rocking the summer cold from hell. Meanwhile, my partner is checking out a bunch of cool tech at CES in Vegas.

Suffice to say, I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself.

We're pretty good at being caretakers when we're in the country though. We've both played nurse while the other was excreting a whole manner of unholy bodily fluids.

Common sense says you should never workout when you're not feeling well, but there are a few exceptions. If you're worried your illness is taking you off track of your fitness goals, here's what you need to know.

When you or your child is sick and all you care about is relief, you'll perk up at any promise a pill bottle makes. But some of those packages hold no medicine at all, just homeopathic "remedies." Australians spend around $1.2 billion per year on non-prescription vitamins, herbal remedies and natural medicines. Their makers are legally allowed to lie to you and say these products can improve your health or provide relief to ailments, even though they absolutely definitely do not.

There's a new flu shot every year, to match the particular flu strains floating around. Some years the shot isn't a good match. Even so, the flu shot is still a good bet.

Your options are to blow or to snort 'n swallow. Unless you prefer to let the snot just sort of dribble out and pool in your philtrum, giving your upper lip a damp, sickly glisten. Which, no -- what are you, seven? It's time you learned to get rid of mucus like a well-informed adult.

We all swear by something that we know probably doesn't work. Maybe it's vitamin C when everyone at work has a cold, or #bootea while we diet, or compression socks while we run. "Even if it doesn't work, what's the harm?" we tell ourselves. The truth is, it's not harmless, and we're only fooling ourselves.

Winter is coming, and that means that everyone is busy getting flu shots, pestering their grandmothers for home cold remedies and distancing themselves from anyone who shows so much as a sniffle. As it turns out, however, avoiding illness this winter could be far easier (and more disgusting) than you've been led to believe.