12.19.2005
Don't share your ice cream cone with your cat
From messybeast.com, a discussion of zoonoses, which are not Halloween masks but diseases you can get from your pet.
Quick summary: you cannot get a cold from your cat, but your cat might get the flu from you. You can get Cat Scratch Fever from your cat. Toxoplasmosis--the reason pregnant women are not supposed to clean litter boxes--may, or may not, have some really weird effects. Both cats and humans can get SARS and bird flu, but they do not seem to transmit it readily to one another. Cats can get mad cow disease, or in their case mad cat disease (Feline Spongiform Encephalitis), only from eating infected meat. Likewise, humans cannot get it from their cats unless they, um, do unspeakable things to them.
And yet, Slim has a cold right now, and so do Goatdog and I. You do the math.
In other news, if you want to know the changes that were made to the Harry Potter books for American audiences, they're all here.
Quick summary: you cannot get a cold from your cat, but your cat might get the flu from you. You can get Cat Scratch Fever from your cat. Toxoplasmosis--the reason pregnant women are not supposed to clean litter boxes--may, or may not, have some really weird effects. Both cats and humans can get SARS and bird flu, but they do not seem to transmit it readily to one another. Cats can get mad cow disease, or in their case mad cat disease (Feline Spongiform Encephalitis), only from eating infected meat. Likewise, humans cannot get it from their cats unless they, um, do unspeakable things to them.
And yet, Slim has a cold right now, and so do Goatdog and I. You do the math.
In other news, if you want to know the changes that were made to the Harry Potter books for American audiences, they're all here.
