A 16-pound orange cat in Ames, Iowa, did something last month that will now and forevermore have a lot of cat lovers taking care to sneeze into their sleeves.
The 13-year-old tabby came down with H1N1 swine flu, proving that humans ill with the flu virus should take pains not to spread it to cats as well as humans.
The case surprised human and animal health authorities, who hadn't seen a human flu virus passed to a cat before, though passionate cat lovers were shaking their heads when it was reported last week.<snip>