2 . Human beings are extremely adaptable creatures, and able to find something good in almost everything. A recent study asked the American population to find out what they consider to be the positive aspect of COVID-19.

A team from Harvard and Stanford conducted interviews of 3,113 participants over the seven-month period from March to September 2020.

The scientists found many things in the responses. Using statistical analysis, the researchers grouped words and themes together to find the most common silver linings in the storm of COVID-19 waves.

Number one, reported by 46% of participants, was quality time with loved ones, including “The kids are helping around the house more”, “I’m in touch with my family who live far away” and “My husband and I take more walks, resulting in more time together.

The second most-recognized silver lining was “life slowed down, and I could do things calmly without FOMO (fear of missing out).” They also noted that because life was slower, they could pursue low-cost hobbies merely for fun, and find time for thinking.

Number three was community coming together, not just in terms of the local community in which the participant was a member, but seeing communities come together all over the world.

The other six themes, reported by between 8% — 12% of participants, included the benefits of having a more flexible working schedule, or completely working from home, getting more health knowledge, and feelings of gratitude.

“Reflecting on benefits may help people better recognize the outside protective factors in their lives — such as having strong relationships with family or friends — or their own inside protective factors — such as being grateful,” the researchers note. “The process of identifying benefits may help people notice the protective factors in their lives, which are ‘skill, strengths, or resources that can help them deal more effectively with stressful events’. It serves as psychological buffers that protect individuals from the potential harms of tough situations.”

4 . There have been few precious positives during the COVID-19 pandemic but academies may have unearthed one: People look more attractive in protective masks.

Researchers at Cardiff University were surprised to find that both men and women were: judged to look better with a face covering hiding the lower half of their faces.

Dr Michael Lewis, a reader from Cardiff University’s school of psychology and an expert in faces, said research carried out before the pandemic had found that medical face masks reduced attractiveness because they were associated with disease or illness.

“We wanted to test whether the idea had changed since face coverings became common and understand whether the type of mask had any effect,” he said.

“Our study suggests faces are considered more attractive when covered by medical face masks. This may be because we’re used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now we associate these with people in caring or medical professions. At a time when we feel weak, we may find the wearing of medical masks makes us feel less worried or frightened and so we feel more positive towards the wearer.”

The first part of the research was carried out in February 2021. Forty-three women were asked to rate on a scale of one to ten the attractiveness of images of male faces without a mask, wearing a plain cloth mask, a blue medical face mask, and holding a plain black book covering the area a face mask would hide.

The participants said those wearing a cloth mask were significantly more attractive than the ones with no masks or whose faces were partly obscured (掩盖) by the book. But the medical face mask—which was just a normal, disposable kind—made the wearer look even better.

“The results run counter to the pre-pandemic research where it was thought that masks made people think about disease and that the person should be avoided.” said Lewis. “The pandemic has changed our psychology in how we view the wearers of masks. When we see someone wearing a mask we no longer think ‘that person has a disease, and I need to stay away’.”

7 . Last September, British artist Sacha Jafri set the record for creating the world's largest painting. Last week, the painting was sold for $62 million, which will go to charity.

Last year, as the COVID-19 spread and many countries went into lockdown, Mr. Jafri was in Dubai. Rather than feeling stuck, Mr. Jafri decided to take on a huge project that could“make a really big difference”.

He decided to create the world's largest painting. And he wanted to do it in a way that would include people from around the world. He asked children to send him pictures showing how they were feeling during the pandemic(疫情). He got artwork from kids in 140 different countries.

Using the children's ideas as a starting point, Mr. Jafri began to paint in a huge dancing room in a fancy hotel. It took Mr. Jafri seven months to create the painting. He worked long hours every day—often up to 20 hours a day. He hurt his back by bending over so much while he painted. It took over 1,000 paintbrushes and 6,300 liters of paint to create the painting. The painting, which was over 1,600 square meters, was around the size of four basketball courts.

Mr. Jafri hoped that his painting, called “The Journey of Humanity”, would help bring the world together during a difficult time. Since Mr. Jafri’s goal was to raise money to help children suffering from the pandemic, the painting was split up into 70 large parts. Mr. Jafri hoped that by selling the parts separately, he could raise $30 million.

But when the auction(拍卖) ended on March 22, Mr. Jafri did much better than that. A French businessman bought all the pieces. Knowing that the money would go to charity also motivated him to decide to pay more. He says he was poor when he grew up, so he's glad to be helping children around the world by buying the painting.