2 . One rainy afternoon, I was on a cross-town bus when a young woman jumped on. She had a child with her who must have been about 3 or 4 years old.

The bus was full, bumpy, and it soon got noisy as her kid began crying because he couldn't sit next to his mother. There were a couple of open seats, but they weren't together. She was flustered and looked embarrassed.

Then another woman, a little older, stood up and moved so that the mother and child could sit together. The mom smiled as a thank-you. And then three words came out of the older woman's mouth that elevated the entire energy of that bus ride:“I've been there”.

Simple, undramatic and honest. In that moment, it seemed to unite people. Why? Because almost all experiences are shared human experiences. We forget that, as we forge (前进) through life, focused on our own troubles and needs—which are actually less unique than we think. How can these three words create more connection in your life? Ask yourself: “Where am I holding back?”

One thing I know for sure is this: Healing others helps heal yourself. I noticed this recently with my friend, Tracy, who took a new friend who had suffered miscarriage under her wing. Tracy had three of them before having her daughter two years ago. Our intellect needs a doctor to explain the medical side of things, yes. But our souls need human connection to help us along. No one can do that better than someone who has been exactly where you are.

Can the essence of these three words help you make a small difference right now? It can be as simple as volunteering your seat, sharing some helpful advice or even lightening the mood with a joke when you notice that someone's uncomfortable -because we're all in this together.

3 . The playing field is never even or equal. Your skills and attitude play a major role in the outcome. Knowing what you can do to have an advantage can make the difference between success and failure.

My kids tell me it's unfair to play with the big children. I tell them that's right. Unfairness is a good thing. There is more to be gained by the effort when things seem unfair. It is true that many things in the world are unfair. But unfair things usually can be a boon to you. For example, the early bird catches the worm. It is unfair that the bird that sleeps in misses out on breakfast but it is nice to know that if it gets up early it is sure to get the worm.

I always try to explain to my kids that complaining about how unfair something is will get them nowhere. Instead, make the most out of it and get on the other side of it. Once you do that you are in the advantage. Above all, you have to focus on gaining that unfair advantage and in order to do that, build your inner strength, When you empower （武装） yourself, you are gaining skills or abilities， confidence and self-esteem （自尊）.

You should look at your place in the world. Where do you want to be financially, spiritually, emotionally, and physically ? You are creating your own story when you empower yourself.

You can build all the advantages that you need to live the life that you want. If you haven't yet, you need to make a list of all the things you want to experience in your new life. This will help you focus on building advantages so that you never have to say that it's Not Fair. When you do this then you will be able to realize that unfairness is a good thing and you will want to teach those around you to see unfairness in this way too.

4 . A Teacher’s Lifesaving Call

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Julia Koch began what was only her second year as a first grade teacher in a virtual classroom.

One September afternoon a few weeks into the school year, she received a call from Cynthia Phillips, who was having technical difficulties with her granddaughter’s tools for online learning.

Koch immediately knew something was wrong with Phillips. The two women had spoken numerous times before, but Koch had never heard the grandmother sound quite like this. Her words were so jumbled that Koch could barely understand her, though she was able to make out that Phillips had fallen four times that day.

Koch called her principal, Charlie Lovelady, who assured her that he would call and check on Phillips himself.

Just like Koch, Lovelady could barely understand Phillips. He suspected she might be having a stroke—he recognized the signs from when his own father had suffered one. Lovelady was able to make out the word “kids” and immediately became concerned that Phillips’s two grandchildren, aged six and eight, were probably home alone with her—she   is   their primary guardian—and scared. Lovelady asked his office manager to send an ambulance to the grandmother’s home. Then Lovelady called two deans in the school district, to tell them what was going on, both of whom dropped everything and drove to the family’s home.

When they pulled up less than ten minutes later, the EMTs(急救人员)were treating Phillips while the two girls, looking visibly shaken, were outside with a neighbor.

The quick response from Koch and Lovelady saved Phillips’s life. She arrived at the hospital in time to get treatment and before chronic damage occurred.

“If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here,” said Phillips from her hospital bed about a month after her stroke.

Thanks to an extended stay in the hospital, she has regained most of the movement throughout her body except for one hand and a portion of her mouth, which affects her speech.

5 . Technology is a double-edged sword(双刃剑)— while it brings convenience, it also brings new problems. The sword of “social media” even has its preference: It cuts deeper into girls than boys.

Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University in the US, recently discovered an alarming trend: Since 2010, the number of teenage girls who suffer from major depression, showing signs like self-harm and suicide (自杀), has increased much faster than that of boys. It is social media again that is to blame.

Statistically, girls use social media more than boys. Boys tend to spend their screen time on games, where they talk to their teammates through headphones. Though not directly, this still counts as real human contact. Girls, however, simply type and browse through posts, which is a much more isolated (孤立的) experience. “They're not having a real-time conversation with someone most of the time,” Mary Fristad, psychologist at The Ohio State University, told NPR.

And when it comes to online shaming, girls are also more vulnerable than boys. “Girls face more pressure about their appearance, which could be exacerbated (加重) by social media,” wrote Twenge. Shannon McLaughlin, for example, is an 18-year-old from Blackburn College in the US. She shared with the Guardian how social media made her feel depressed.

But McLaughlin found a solution. She started volunteering with the National Citizen Service, where she made face-to-face contact with people. "It's so easy to forget the importance of real connections when we have hundreds of people that we' re trying to impress at our fingertips," she told the Guardian. And she hopes that others "look up from their phones and focus more on the world around them".

6 . For decades, Americans have been sorting their trash believing that most plastic could be recycled. But the truth is that the vast majority of all plastic produced can’t be or won’t be recycled. In 40 years, less than 10% of plastic has been recycled.

A news programme Frontline, by NPR and the PBS. found that oil and gas companies—the makers of plastic—have known that all along, even as they spent millions of dollars telling the American public the opposite. The plastics industry officials said the industry is providing money for new technology that they believe will get recycling plastic up to scale. The goal, they said, is to recycle 100% of the plastic they make in 5 years.

But the more plastic is recycled, the less money the industry will make by selling new plastic. And those profits have become increasingly important. Companies have told shareholders that profits from using oil and gas for transport are expected to decline in coming years with the increasing use of electric cars. The industry leaders expect oil and gas demands from the chemical industry will be much greater than the demand from the transport side in the coming decade. Plastic production overall is now expected to rise three times by 2050, and once again, the industry is spending money on advertisements and public relations to promote plastic recycling.

Plastic is now more common than it’s ever been and harder to recycle. Gas prices remain at historic lows, making new plastic cheaper than recycled plastic. And the industry now produces many more different—and more complex—kinds of plastics that are more costly to sort and in many cases can’t be recycled at all. Efforts to reduce plastic use are mounting nationwide, but any plan to slow the growth of plastic will face an industry with billions of dollars of future profits to lose.

8 . Harvard University, which is facing claims of racial discrimination against Asian-Americans in its admission process, has announced that its early acceptance rate for Asian Americans for the Class of 2022 has hit 24.2 percent, up from 21.7 percent a year earlier. The figures were released on Dec 12, 2017 by the school on its official website, the Harvard Gazette.

The early enrollments for the Class of 2022 also reflect an overall increase in other nonwhite students from previous years, the famous university said. African-Americans make up 13.9 percent of students admitted early, compared with 12.6 percent last year. At the same time, Latinos account for 9.8 percent, up 1 percentage point last year, and Native Americans and Native Hawaiians account for 1.8 percent, up from 1.1 percent.

“From small towns, suburbs, and cities — from throughout the United States and around the world — the Class of 2022 promises to be among the best classes in Harvard’s long history,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University.

Harvard is facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice and a separate lawsuit accusing the college of discriminating against Asian-Americans in its undergraduate admission process.

In November, 2017 the Justice Department cited a 2015 lawsuit that charges Harvard’s affirmative action policies discriminating against Asian-American applicants, in a letter setting a Dec 1 deadline for Harvard to hand over documents on its admission policies. Responding to that deadline, Harvard offered a compromise position in which the government’s lawyers would be able to examine all the records, including an electronic database, in the offices of Harvard’s lawyers, with some personal information redacted, according to The New York Times.

Harvard University reported that 16.6 percent of a total 29,652 students are Asian, according to college factual.com. Over the past five years, the total international population of students on campus has grown at an average rate of 6.8 percent. China is the largest contributor to this growth, with about 1,263 students.

10 . Everyone knows that death is natural, but do you have any idea of the process of dying? Modern scientists divide the process of dying into two phases---clinical or temporary death and biological death. Clinical death occurs when the vital organs, such as the heart or lungs, have ceased to function, but have not suffered permanent damage. The organism can still be revived (复活). Biological death occurs when changes in the organism lead to the “breaking up” of vital cells and tissues. Death is then unchangeable and final.

Scientists have been seeking a way to prolong the period of clinical death so that the organism can remain alive before biological death occurs. The best method developed so far involves cooling of the organism, combined with narcotic sleep. By slowing down the body's metabolism, cooling delays the processes leading to biological death.

To illustrate how this works, scientists performed an experiment on a six-year-old female monkey called Keta. The scientist put Keta to sleep with a narcotic. Then they surrounded her body with ice-bags and began checking her body temperature. When it had dropped to 28 degrees the scientists began draining blood from an artery. The monkey's blood pressure decreased and an hour later both the heart and breathing stopped: clinical death set in. For twenty minutes Keta remained in this state. Her temperature dropped to 22 degrees. At this point the scientists pumped blood into an artery in the direction of the heart and started artificial breathing. After two minutes Keta's heart became active once more. After fifteen minutes, spontaneous (自发的) breathing began, and after four hours Keta opened her eyes and lifted her head. After six hours, when the scientists tried to give her a penicillin injection, Keta seize d the syringe and ran with it around the room. Her behavior differed little from that of a healthy animal.