大学英语考试精读：第六册(UNIT7).doc

洛基英语，中国在线英语教育领导品牌 It is often said that cats have nine lives, that they are lucky enough to escape from danger again and again. Here is a science fiction tale about how one such lucky escape by a cat led to a discovery that was able to change the course of peoples lives. The problems stemming from the discovery also make interesting reading. ZERITSKYS LAW Ann Griffith 　　Somebody someday will make a study of the influence of animals on history. Among them, Mrs. Grahams cat should certainly be included in any such study. It has now been definitely established that the experiences of this cat led to the idea of quick-frozen people, which, in turn, led to the passage of Zeritskys Law. 　　We must go back to the files of the Los Angeles newspapers for 1950 to find the story. In brief, a Mrs. Fred C. Graham missed her pet cat on the same day that she put a good deal of food down in her home deep-freeze unit. She suspected no connection between the two events. The cat was not to be found until six days later, when its owner went to fetch something from the deepfreeze. Much as she loved her pet, we may imagine that she was more horror-than grief-stricken at her discovery. She lifted the little ice-encased body out of the deep——freeze and set it on the floor. Then she managed to run as far as the next door neighbors house before fainting. 　　Mrs. Graham became hysterical after she was revived, and it was several hours before she could be quieted enough to persuade anybody that she hadnt made up the whole thing. She prevailed upon her neighbor to go back to the house with her. In front of the deep-freeze they found a small pool of water, and a wet cat, busily licking itself. The neighbor subsequently told reporters that the cat was concentrating its licking on one of its hind legs, where some ice still remained, so that she, for one, believed the story. 　　A follow-up dispatch, published a week later, reported that the cat was unharmed by the adventure. Further, Mrs. Graham was q