1 . I believe my life was saved because of Beethoven's moonlight sonata (鸣奏曲) being put in a video game. To be clearer, I was a terrible kid, living in the mean streets of Philadelphia, where I frequently got involved with street gangs (一帮年轻人) and did horrible things I regret today. I was failing out of high-school and had no future prospects. The only music type I listened to at the time was rap and R&B, but classical music never crossed my ear.

I remember playing a game called Resident Evil one day, and in order to get to the next part of the game, the lead character, "Jill", has to discover a page or two of sheet music for the piano in order to open a secret passage to progress through the game. Once obtained, the game fades out and pops out a new scene where Jill plays the piano. Being in complete awe, I had no idea what these feelings were and admittedly didn't want it to stop. 20 seconds or so later, the short clip of music halted and my face was moist from tears that dripped from my eyes. I didn't know what was going on and was severely confused. All I knew was that I had to replay that scene over and over again, not knowing who Beethoven was or that it was much longer and satisfying piece.

My last year of high school, I wasn't expected to graduate but I had the opportunity to select a music elective. It was then that I realized that classical music chose me and that I had the gift of transferring emotion through classical composition. Everything became so much clearer and for some reason higher learning other subjects, including physics, chemistry, became interesting and easy. It was as if my brain turned on and I began to appreciate everything and everyone around me. Without classical music, I would be like 90% of my friends back in Philadelphia, or a non-productive member of society. Classical music saved my life.

2 . The skull(颅骨)of a tiny bird preserved in a 100-million-year-old Myanmar amber has been discovered by an international team of scientists, according to a paper newly published in the scientific journal Nature.

The 14-millimeter-long skull is smaller than that of a bee hummingbird, the smallest living bird, making the new species the smallest bird and dinosaur ever found.

When Xing Lida, a paleontologist(古生物家)at the China University of Geosciences, who led the research, first saw the amber in 2016, he was amazed. "It's like a tiny arrow with a long beak(鸟喙)and big eyes. . . Only birds have such characteristics," he said.

The well-preserved fossil skull has rows of nearly 100 teeth that extend all the way under its big eyes that are supported by eye bones of a unique structure. The unusually high number of teeth and the unique shape of the eye make it difficult to classify the specimen(标本).

Scientists think that about 100 million years ago this bird-like animal lived in the tropical Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar, where the amber was mined.

Despite its small size, the specimen, named Oculudentavis khaungraae(宽娅眼齿鸟), has more teeth than any other fossilized bird. The large number of teeth indicates that it was a predator(捕食者), the paper said.

"Judging from its size, it might prey mainly on insects," Xing said. "In fact, it has some characteristics that do not belong to birds or even dinosaurs. At present we think of it as a bird or a dinosaur, which is the most likely conclusion based on the characteristics of the skull.”

One of the biggest advantages of amber lies in its high-quality preservation of the fine details in the skull and soft tissue features. "Amber gives us almost the only opportunity, to learn about tiny vertebrates(脊椎动物)from the dinosaur age," Xing said. "Oculudentavis is by far the smallest and most important specimen."

3 . Here on Earth where most of us live, we spend about a third of everyday lying down sleeping and two-thirds standing or sitting in an upright position.

That's not really how it goes in space when people are weightless and the zero gravity environment causes more liquid to shift to the head. Faces get swollen, legs lose volume and appear to be smaller. Many astronauts have complained of eye and back problems after coming back down to Earth and its gravity.

And now scientists say they have discovered some new risks with long-term space flight. A study published recently in JAMA Network Open, a medical journal, examined 11 healthy astronauts who had been on the International Space Station for six months. Eight of them had unusual characteristics observed in their blood. For instance, six of the astronauts had reverse （反向的）blood flow from their heads.

The lead author of the study says he doesn't know if that's actually harmful. The blood is still leaving the head from other pathways, so flowing backwards through a jugular vein（颈静脉） may not be dangerous. But he says it does show a change in how blood moves through the body while in space.

Another issue the study found was blood clots （凝块）. One astronaut had one. Another showed signs of a partial blood clot. That is potentially harmful as the clots can block the flow of blood to the lungs. The astronaut who had one was treated for the rest of the spaceflight and made it home safely.

What does all this mean? Well, one researcher says these issues have probably been oc- curring since humans first went into space and that they would likely resolve themselves when astronauts came back down to Earth. Knowing about them now gives doctors something else to monitor when people leave our atmosphere.

4 . When I was young, I had a wrong understanding of being great. I believed I was special and different and should be rich and famous because of my talent. I was going to live my dream rather than being a “normal” person. But as time passed, reality set in and my perspective changed.

I am a teacher, married to a salesman with a baby and a mortgage（按揭贷款）. Could my life be more normal? Yet, I am okay with this.

Were I to have a conversation with my twenty-year-old self, she wouldn't understand why I'm not going to NYC to get an audition （试演）. In four years my coworkers have never heard me sing. If I'd bought a house, it should have been in an interesting neighborhood with coffee houses at every corner. She would laugh at the corner house in the neighborhood I now call home.

But I know things she didn't know. Life is so much more complicated, wonderful and terrible. I know what it means to work for love, not just sitting back and letting it happen the way it can when you're young. I know about bringing life into the world, and the complexity of emotions.

My life is simple. It is small, and may seem interchangeable with so many other lives there. I may never make an impact outside my house. But I've learned it is important to be relative. To my little girl, I am irreplaceable. When she cries, she calls for “Mama”. When she reaches out, it's for me alone. So, is it a small life? It's perfectly fine to me. In fact, I think it's what I've wanted all along.

5 . If you wear contact lenses (隐形眼镜), you might not know the best way to deal with old ones. Washing them down the sink or flushing them down the toilet is not the way to go. Yet one in five people who wear contact lenses do just that. However, the plastic in their lenses can linger (存留), polluting both water and land.

Rolf Halden, an engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe, and his team created an online survey. More than 400 contact lens wearers took part. The questions asked how many got rid of their lenses inappropriately. About 20 percent — one in five — sent their used contact lenses down sink drain or toilet. Assuming all contact lens wearers in the U. S. do that at the same rate, the researchers then calculated how much plastic would be flushed away each year. Their estimate: 6 to 10 metric tons! That's about the weight of two to three adult African forest elephants. Contact lenses are a tiny part of the world's plastic pollution. But the unique plastic used in contact lenses could make them a big concern.

To figure it out, researchers exposed contact lenses to the microbes (微生物) used to clean wastewater in water-treatment plants. These microbes made the plastics begin to fall apart, but they weren't fully broken down. Instead, they created a lot of tiny pieces called microplastics.

Halden worries that these small plastic bits will cause trouble in the food chain. In water, the plastics from contact lenses sink. Animals could view these tiny bits as food. But because the plastic won't provide them with nutrition, this could threaten the health of animals who dined on it.

And that's already happening. Many studies have shown that corals, larval fish and shellfish are mistaking microplastics for food. Over time, they risk accumulating even higher levels of plastic in their bodies. Also the pollution has already shown up in bottled water, sea salt and fish sold for human consumption.

6 . Thankfully, I found the courage to persevere in the face of adversity and succeeded. Otherwise. I could be a victim and feel sorry for myself for the rest of my life.

A doctor told me at a young age that I would likely never graduate from high school due to my severe hearing loss and my extremely slow speech development. I found the courage to work hard in school and be active in sports and other activities despite wearing hearing aids and living with a 70% hearing loss. By the time I was college-age, I started losing my night vision. I decided to go away to college 300 miles from home. I obtained my bachelor' s degree and graduated with honors. Even though I had terrible hearing loss and was beginning to lose my sight at night, I found the courage to begin a professional career.

After earning my MBA degree, I accepted a position with Kellogg in the Corporate Affairs Department. When I was working on my MBA degree, I found the courage to ask someone successful despite facing similar challenges to mentor（指导）me. He encouraged me to consider Kellogg as he knew the company was committed to diversity and inclusion（包容）. I nervously started my new career, because my vision loss had progressed significantly in the past few years. I am thankful to have a mentor that encouraged me and I am thankful I found the courage to apply for a position with Kellogg.

While Kellogg fosters a supportive, encouraging environment, it still takes courage for me to require what I need to make sure I am successful in my career. I need courage to speak up and ask for suitable accommodations to do my job. I also have to ask for assistance navigating through unfamiliar areas. I have found that everyone at Kellogg is always more than willing to take my requests into account.

Even though I face daily challenges, I have so much to be grateful for. We often face difficulties we cannot control, but we can be courageous in order to face adversity and address challenges.

7 . One of Britain' s most outstanding scientists says the growth in the use of electronic tablets and smart phones is causing people to spend so much time indoors that they need to take regular vitamin D supplements to make up for the lack of sunlight they receive naturally.

Geneticist Steve Jones said he himself was a follower to the cause and urged others to follow. “I never thought I would be a person who would take vitamin supplements；I always thought it was absolute nonsense. But now I take vitamin D every day. Today, because I knew the sun wasn't going to shine, I took an extra one,” he said.

Exposure to the sun is the major source of vitamin D. However, people are spending less and less time outdoors in many areas. The problem is particularly serious in Scotland. "The Scots are the whitest people in the world because their entire body systems are crying out for vitamin D," he said, adding that life expectancy in Scotland is two years shorter than in England or Wales. Multiple sclerosis (多发性硬化症), a medical condition which is often seen in northern Europe, is also higher in Scotland than in England.

Vitamin D helps with the absorption of Ca, which helps keep bones strong. And Jones said the fact that rickets (佝偻病) was making a comeback in Britain after nearly 50 years was another sign of how changing behavior patterns were bringing physical harm.

Jones admitted that concerns over the damaging effects on skin of long-time exposure to the sun were reasonable, but said sunlight was healthy and necessary for the human body, and could help in lowering blood pressure. "If you lie on the beach for an hour, you will drop your blood pressure by about 10 points, because it relaxes your blood vessels (血管). So, get out in the sun while we still can," he said.