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Sitting next to an obese person may have greater repercussions than loss of personal space. A human virus that turns skinny roosters into chubby chickens is contagious, US researchers have shown. The overweight birds are causing a re-examination of the controversial idea that obesity could be catching1. Chickens and mice injected with a human virus put on fat, Nikhil Dhurandhar and his team at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan found last year. Birds injected with blood from their infected friends also start to gain flab, the researchers have now shown, proving that the virus is responsible. ''They don't visibly become fat,'' says Dhurandhur, but their fat stores grow. Within 5 weeks the birds carried at least 35% extra fat, qualifying many of them as obese. Yet the big birds ate the same as their buddies in the brood. Catching the virus isn't limited to direct exchange of bodily fluids. Chickens that shared a cage with an infected bird also showed signs of the virus in their blood within 12 hours, suggesting that the virus can also be spread by nose or mouth secretions.
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