Virus boosts fat in chickens and mice

Sniffling and sneezing, pinkeye, and diarrhea are bad enough. Now, extra body fat? The growing litany of indignities caused by adenoviruses, a set of normally nonlethal but annoying pathogens, appears to be taking an unusual direction.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison report in the August International Journal of Obesity that chickens and mice injected with Ad-36, an adenovirus that causes colds in people, have more body fat than uninfected animals.