2011年12月英语六级考试预测试题（1）_第2页

　　City officials in Aliso Viejo, California, were so concerned about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide that they scheduled a vote last month on whether to ban foam(泡沫)cups from city-sponsored events after they learned the chemical was used in foam-cup production.

　　Officials called off the vote after learning that dihydrogen monoxide is the scientific term for water.

　　"It's embarrassing," city manager David J. Norman told the Associated Press. "We had a paralegal(律师助手)who did bad research."

　　Indeed, the paralegal had fallen victim to an official-looking Web site touting the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. An e-mail originally authored in 1990 by Eric Lechner, then a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, claimed that dihydrogen monoxide "is used as an industrial solvent and coolant, and is used in the production of Styrofoam(聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料)."

　　Other dangers pranksters(爱开玩笑的人)associated with the chemical included accelerated corrosion and rusting, severe burns, and death from inhalation.

　　Versions of the e-mail continue to circulate today, and several Web sites, including that of the Coalition to Ban DHMO, warn, tongue-in-cheek, of water's dangers.

　　Alabama Changes Value of Pi

　　The April 1998 newsletter put out by New Mexicans for science and Reason contains an article titled "Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi". It was penned by April Holiday of the Associmated Press (sic) and told the story of how the Alabama state legislature voted to change the value of the mathematical constant Pi from 3.14159 to the round number of 3.

　　The ersatz(假的)news story was written by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Mark Boslough to parody(滑稽地模仿)legislative and school board attacks on the teaching of evolution in New Mexico.

　　At Boslough's suggestion, Dave Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for science and Reason, posted the article in its entirety to the Internet newsgroup Talk. Origins on April 1. (The newsgroup hosts a lively debate on creation vs. evolution.) Later that evening Thomas posted a full confession to the hoax. He thought he had put all rumors to bed.

　　But to Thomas's surprise, however, several newsgroup readers forwarded the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.