Any good outcomes of winter cold?

It's been 35 years since the upper midwest has had a winter this cold.  Since December began there have been 20 days (nights) where the temperature has been below zero, and for those of you using a sensible C scale, water freezes at 32 on the F scale, so below zero is more than 32 F below freezing.  As the Phactor wonders how some of his semi-hardy, maybe-not-quite-zone 5 plants will do, a neighbor asked if anything good could come of such cold?  Last winter there may not have been any days with below zero temperatures, and the frequency of really cold winters has been decreasing (yes, as expected if the climate is warming).  Well, among the good possible outcomes might be if the emerald ash borer proves to be not so winter hardy.  Wouldn't it be great if a really cold winter knocked out the population!  Wow, that would be great. Some other insect populations might get reduced for a while too like the Japanese beetle, but all the snow cover this year may insulate those things that overwinter in the ground from the cold.  Same is true for some of the low-growing shrubs and other perennials. Snow is a great insulator.  So all we can do is hope for the best.  For example, the aerial portions of our Vitex are not winter hardy at these temperatures, but the basal portions will survive and resprout, so the dead upper portions must just be pruned off.  The last few mild winters had allowed it to become a 2.5 m tree, so for 2014 it will have to start over. 

Darn those germy students!

This has been happening for years.  Students go home for the winter break, wallow in the local germs at that location, and then they bring samples of all these different germs back to campus and begin swapping them around creating a new germ pool where everyone lacks immunity to one or more of these cold germs.  Thus just about two weeks after the semester begins TPP gets a cold or the flu. So right on schedule, TPP finds himself and a box of tissue sitting at his laptop in a bath robe.  Since this cold/flu involves a low grade temperature and severe congestion, it probably counts as flu, and adds to an almost perfect record of always getting the flu whenever he's gotten a flu shot.  How totally annoying.  Coincidentally, the university has cancelled classes because of the extreme cold, so no matter what there will be material that will need to be made up. Hard to argue with the closure when one student was found dead of exposure already, although the circumstances remain uncertain. The worst thing is that congested sinuses really ruins the ability to think and concentrate, so it's not like this is a nice break to get a few things done.  Drat.
While watching the TV, my attention was drawn to a commercial where a doctor looking woman was examining some kids and then turns to the camera and says something to the effect I always recommend [brand name] homeopathic cold remedies.  Now either these things are supplements and therefore unregulated or they are remedies. Of course they want it both ways because these are purely bogus remedies but it's pretty safe to recommend them for a "cold" because mostly you get better anyways, so anything at all will work as well.