As if the idea of catching bird flu isn’t bad enough, now it looks like you might be able to catch being fat. A study done at the University of Wisconsin found that certain viruses may cause obesity, meaning obesity can be contagious. A group of chickens were given human adenoviruses. Those who got certain viruses had much more body fat compared with the control group, even though they didn’t eat any more. While the researchers don’t know if this will hold true for humans, just to be safe you might want to watch what you eat, get plenty of exercise, wash your hands after touching a fat person, and don’t kiss any chickens. Hey, you can’t be too careful, you know.

That’s Mr. Fun to you – A man who legally changed his name to “FUN” when he lived in Texas was issued a driver’s license under that name when he moved to Arizona, just to have it immediately revoked in the name of homeland security. Apparently the name didn’t match his Social Security records which, because it requires two names, has him listed as “Unknown FUN.”

Is God a Republican? – A man in Pennsylvania signed his voter registration form as “God” but the Berks County Elections Board isn’t sure he’ll be allowed to vote. Although he hasn’t legally changed his name he has a PA driver’s license and a credit card with that name on it. Sounds like FUN.

At a political rally in Sardinia on Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was blessed by television preacher Massimiliano Pusceddu. To show his thanks, Berlusconi promised not to have sex before the April 9 election. This means that, for a change, it won’t only be the voters who get screwed that day.

When prospective foreign students called a toll-free number listed on the admissions application they received from Seton Hall University they found themselves connected to a phone-sex chat line where they could “Spark up your days and nights with stimulating talk.” It makes one long for the good old days when simulating campus talk was about Plato, Nietzsche, and Kerouac.

1. More than 200 people auditioned to be on a new reality TV show in England called Let’s Make a Baby. Contestants were to live in a “love hotel.” The least attractive would be voted out each week and the last two couples would try to be the first to conceive a child. For money, of course. The show doesn’t really exist, it was a hoax filmed for the TV show Mischief. At least it won’t exist until Mark Burnett hears about the idea.

2. Viewers in the Czech Republic voted Richard, a 14-year old grey and black gorilla, as winner of Odhaleni, the reality show in which viewers watched gorillas on webcams at the Prague Zoo and voted for their favorite. Richard won 12 melons, didn’t have to conceive on camera, and plans on paying all his taxes, unlike another reality show Richard.

Just on time for the release of Pope Benedict XVI’s ^TM first encyclical, entitled “God^® Is Love,” comes the news that for the first time all papal documents will be copyrighted by the Vatican’s official publisher, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Hopefully the mere mention of the Pope’s^TM name or the title of his encyclical^® isn’t enough to make Vatican lawyers salivate. Too much.

Researchers have found that bats with the largest testicles have the smallest brains. In other words, “Males – at least in some species – make an evolutionary trade-off between intelligence and sexual prowess.” We shouldn’t extrapolate this to include humans, but we will.

Now that Dave and Oprah have made up, why shouldn’t everybody? Fourteen years after Joey Buttafuoco had an affair with 16-year-old Amy Fisher, who turned around and shot Joey’s wife Mary Jo in the face, they’ve all signed up to have a lovely reunion. On TV, of course. If the show gets good ratings you can expect to see Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding skating together in Holiday Get Iced, Rodney King be honored at the Los Angeles Police Department Picnic, and Ted Kennedy and George Bush kiss and make-up with an appearance on Family Feud.

Shannon Cook of Wheaton, IL was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a year’s probation for leaving her three young children home alone while she and her boyfriend went to see the taping of a TV show. The Jerry Springer Show. She probably thought it was an audition.

The Bruin Alumni Association of UCLA is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of UCLA’s most radical professors so the friendly service organization can expose them on its web site. To get the money students have to turn in complete recordings of every class session, detailed lecture notes, and teaching materials. If they only hand over notes and materials they’ll get $50. They can receive $40 for a photograph of a professor praising Ted Kennedy, $25 for a recording of a dean ridiculing Fox News, and $17.95 if they can prove they found something edible in the school cafeteria.

The Department of Justice has issued a subpoena asking Google to turn over information from its databases to determine how often people search for pornography. Google is refusing. Good for them. Attorney General Gonzales is a smart guy, let him find some hot sites on his own just like everyone else.

William Shatner has sold his kidney stone to GoldenPalace.com — the people who bought the grilled cheese sandwich that looks like the Virgin Mary, the PopeMobile, and a doughnut shaped like Texas — for $25,000, with the money going to Habitat for Humanity. Leonard Nimoy is pissed the money didn’t go to Villas for Vulcans.

According to an Associated Press story about President Bush’s speech at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration on Monday, “Bush Says King’s ‘Dream’ Not Yet Completed.” He should know, he’s the one who authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on a Ouija board chat with Dr. King. With a court order, of course.

Selfridges department store in England is giving lessons to the iPod impaired. And it only costs $150 for a 40-minute class. Yes, about the same as an iPod Nano. If enough people sign up they’re expected to expand the offerings to include “How to Put on a Sweater,” “Left Sock, Right Sock – No More Confusion,” and “Boiling Water Without Burning The Toaster.”

– Britain’s Department of Health found that almost a third of young Britons have passed off a ready-made meal they bought as their own in order to impress someone. Women, not men, were the worst offenders, with 40 percent having done it. Excellent idea claiming soggy fish and chips, greasy sausage rolls, and jellied eels as your own in order to impress a date.

– Furthermore, according to the Learning and Skills Council, one in 10 young Britons is more interested in becoming rich and famous than getting a good education and would quit school to become a tabloid star. At least then you could hire someone to buy ready-made food you can pass off as your own, eh mate?

A couple of years ago a company in Taiwan came out with GloFish, the world’s first fluorescent Zebra fish. Why? Because they could. Now another group of scientists there has come up with fluorescent green pigs. “There are partially fluorescent green pigs elsewhere,” one of the researchers said without a glimmer of irony, “but ours are the only ones in the world that are green from inside out. Even their hearts and internal organs are green.” Finally, instant gratification. No longer will you have to wait three weeks for that partially used package of bacon to turn green in the refrigerator.

On January 15th the Stardust spacecraft will return to Earth after seven years in space. During that time it scooped up grains of interstellar dust along with the more publicized samples of a comet. Now researchers at UC Berkeley are looking for people to help it search for the tiny dust particles. They figure the space ship nabbed a whopping 45 particles — or one every 57 days — and since each one is about a millionth of a meter, they’re kind of tough to locate, better yet separate from the comet mites, moon lint, and dried alien drool.

Hot on the tail of Barbara Bush, who wrote a book from her dog’s point of view, and Gloria Estefan who wrote about her dog, Senator Ted Kennedy is putting the finishing touches on a children’s book about a day in the life of a senator from the point of view of his dog Splash. The 56-page picture book, My Senator and Me: A Dog’s-Eye View of Washington, D.C. is a natural. After all, a senator’s life is pretty much about barking loudly for no good reason, gobbling up everything in sight, and creating crap that everyone else has to deal with and clean up.

A survey by a psychology magazine found that Italians feel guiltier about cheating on their diet than cheating on their partners. Riza Psicosomatica magazine listed the country’s seven most guilt-inducing vices. Over-eating was number one, followed by excessive spending, neglecting friends and family, failing at work, and not looking after one’s physique. Sexual fidelity came in dead last. Apparently not looking good is worse than not feeling good.

Dans Le Noir, a restaurant that opens in London next month, has no lights. That’s because they’ll be serving dinner in the dark. Blind waiters will lead diners from a normally lit bar where they’ll pick out their dinner, into a darkened room where they won’t see what they’re eating. “A lot of people make huge mistakes in the dark,” chef Edouard de Broglie says of his similar Paris restaurant. “They confuse tuna and veal.” In other words, order cheap. But whatever you do, don’t order the Creme Brulée flambéed tableside.