Meet Oscar, a cat with a super natural ability to feel when people are about to die. In over 50 documented cases,Oscar, who lives in a nursing home , has curled up beside patients in their final hours, seeing them through to the 'other side'.
这只叫做奥斯卡的猫可以感知人们何时即将死亡。在50起记录中，这只敬老院里的猫在老人们即将离世的几个小时前蜷缩在他们身边，陪伴他们离开人世。
His unique story was revealed by Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, who claims Oscar's predictions have rarely been wrong in the past six years. In fact, he has even proved medical staff wrong at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, where he was adopted seven years ago as a kitten.
披露了这个事情的是来自布朗大学的老年病学专家兼助理教授David Dosa，他称过去6年来，来自罗德岛一家敬老院的奥斯卡在预测死亡上几乎没有失败过。
Dr. Dosa first told the world about Oscar'srare gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Sincethen, the cat has accurately sensed even more deaths, convincing the geriatrician that it wasn't just a series of coincidences. Dr. Dosa eventually wrote a book about his experiences with Oscar at the nursing home. It's called 'Making rounds with Oscar: The extraordinary gift of an ordinary cat'.
David Dosa在2007年的时候开始向外界透露这只猫的天赋。从那以后，这只猫准确预测了更多的死亡事件，所以他认为这不是巧合。他最终为这只敬老院里的猫写了一本书。这本书叫做《与奥斯卡转圈圈：一直平凡猫的不平凡天赋》
The book describes Oscar's daily routine,how he spends his time pacing from room to room at the nursing home, rarely spending time with patients who have still got a fighting chance of survival.Instead, he picks out certain patients and cuddles up next to them . These are often the ones who will pass away in a short time. If kept outside the roomof a dying patient, he will scratch at the door, trying to get in.
这本书记录了奥斯卡的日常生活，记录它如何在敬老院里从一个房间走到另一个房间，很少花时间和还有一线生机的老人呆在一起。它会挑选某些老人，然后蜷缩在他们旁边。而这些老人往往是即将过世的老人。如果被关在即将离世老人的房门外，它就会用爪子抓门，想要进去。
In order to test his paranormal gift, thenurses at the nursing home tried placing Oscar on the bed of a patient they thought might be close to death. But the cat simply 'charged out' and went tosit with another patient. His judgement turned out to be correct – the second patient died the same evening, while the first one lived on for two more days.
为了测试它的这个禀赋，敬老院里的看护人员将它放在一个他们认为即将离世的老人身边。但是这只猫走开了，来到了另外一个老人身边，而它的判断最终证明是正确的——第二个老人当晚就去世，而第一个老人继续活了两天。
In his book, Dr. Dosa doesn't offer any scientific explanations for the cat's abilities, but he does suggest that Oscar– like dogs that are reportedly able to smell cancer – might be able to smell ketones, which are distinctly odored biochemicals given off by dying cells.
在他的书中，Dosa博士没有为猫的这种能力提供任何的科学解释，但是他认为像能闻出癌症的狗一样，这只猫可能具备了闻到酮类物质的能力，酮类是死亡细胞会散发出的一种生化物质。
Dr. Jill Goldman, a certified animal behaviorist in California, has a different theory – that Oscar'spredictions might be a learned behavior. "There has been ample opportunity forhim to make an association between 'that' smell and death." And according toanimal behaviorist Dr. Daniel Estep, Oscar may only be recognizing the patients'lack of movement and interpreting it as illness, as cats can of tensense when their owners are sick.
而来自加州的动物行为学家JillGoldman博士则有另一种说法——他认为奥斯卡的预测可能是一种习得性行为。“它有足够多的机会来在‘那种'味道和死亡之间做出联系。”而根据另外一名动物行为学家的看法，奥斯卡可能意识到了病人在行动上的缺乏，并将其理解为一种疾病，而猫通常都能感觉到自己的主人是否生病了。
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