It has been reported that penguins can get avian 'flu as well: Now read on - nicked from a newsgroup: H5N1 BIRD FLU BELIEVED TO BE FIRST VIRUS UNABLE TO SPREAD THROUGH MICROSOFT OUTLOOK Researchers Shocked to Finally Find Virus That Email App Doesn't Like Atlanta, Ga. — Scientists at the Center for Disease Control and Symantec's AntiVirus Research Center today confirmed that H5N1 bird flu cannot be spread by Microsoft's Outlook email application, believed to be the first time the program has ever failed to propagate a major virus. "Frankly, we've never heard of a virus that couldn't spread through Microsoft Outlook, so our findings were, to say the least, unexpected," said Clive Sarnow, director of the CDC's infectious disease unit. The study was immediately hailed by British officials, who said it will save millions of pounds. "Up until now we have, quite naturally, assumed that bird flu was spread by Microsoft Outlook," said Sir Liam Donaldson, Britain's Chief Medical Officer. "By eliminating it, we can focus our resources elsewhere." However, researchers in Romania, where bird flu has recently appeared, said they are not yet prepared to disqualify Outlook, which has been the progenitor of viruses such as "I Love You," "Bubbleboy," "Anna Kournikova," and "Naked Wife," to name but a few. Said Andrei Niculescu, director of the Molecular Virology Lab at Bucharest University: "It's not that we don't trust the research, it's just that as scientists, we are trained to be sceptical of any finding that flies in the face of established truth. And this one flies in the face like a blind drunk sparrow." Executives at Microsoft, meanwhile, were equally sceptical, insisting that Outlook's patented Virus Transfer Protocol (VTP) has proven virtually pervious to any virus. The company, however, will issue a free VTP patch if it turns out the application is not vulnerable to bird flu. Such an admission would be embarrassing for the software giant, but Symantec virologist Ariel Kologne insisted that no one is more humiliated by the study than she is. "Only last week, I had a reporter ask if the bird flu spreads through Microsoft Outlook, and I told him, 'Doesn't everything?'" she recalled. "Who would've thought?" -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/