Girls rule, boys...sneeze?

Women may be better than men at fighting off disease, a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

In research on mice, scientists found that estrogen in the female rodents blocks production of a protein that slows the immune system's response to infection.

Females may have stronger defenses, a possible quirk of evolution that protects mothers-to-be, says lead study author, Dr Maya Saleh, assistant professor of medicine at McGill University in Canada.