3 . One day of the last December, I was sitting on a long, black and folding medical table. Beside me was a woman in a down jacket talking about the cold change the weather had taken recently. A radio in the corner was playing Christmas music, even though it was still weeks away. I took a drink from the bottle of lemonade I had brought with me, so I wouldn’t get dizzy (眩晕的).

I looked around at all the other people lying on their medical tables. Each of us had a needle in our arm, which was connected to a tube that led to a plastic bag. Each of us had come to give a precious gift to help others, make the world a better place, and perhaps even save a life.

It was the local blood drive and I had driven 12 miles across snowy roads to get there. I tried never to miss one even in winter. Despite all the time it took, I felt blessed being able to give this gift back to others. I had been given so much in my life: a kind husband, a loving family, many friends, and enough money to meet my needs. These gifts made me feel wonderful, yet the one thing that brought me more happiness was giving something back.

As you know, in the world, nothing brings you as much joy as taking your place in the great circle of love. In this circle, the more you give back, the more you get in return; the more love you let flow from your heart, the more love flows into it.

There are so many gifts you can give in this life: a smile, a kind word, a few dollars, a hug, a caring letter, and even a pint of blood. Each of them is priceless and precious. What you have to do is take action. In this way, the world will be filled with love.

4 . Two weeks ago, a 5-year-old girl named Sunshine Oelfke emptied out her piggy bank (存钱罐) onto the living room floor and started counting. Her grandmother, Jackie Oelfke, thought she was playing as she carefully lined up the coins. But then she saw the girl put the coins in her backpack.

“What are you doing with that money?” Jackie asked her granddaughter.

“I’m taking it to school,” Sunshine replied. “I’m going to take it for milk money. My friend Layla doesn’t get milk—her mom doesn’t have milk money and I do.”

Jackie’s heart melted at Sunshine’s words. Choked (哽咽) with strong feelings, Jackie held her sweet granddaughter tightly in her arms.

Last week, Jackie and Sunshine met with her teacher, Rita Hausher, and handed her the $30 the girl had saved. There are 20 kids in Sunshine’s class and about half don’t get milk. It costs $ 0.45 a carton (纸盒). The total adds up to about $180 a month for every child in the class to have milk every day.

After dropping Sunshine off at school, Jackie posted a video on Facebook to explain her granddaughter’s plan. To her surprise, many people offered to donate toward the cause. Within a week, Jackie raised more than $1,000. Now every student in Sunshine`s class can get free milk for the rest of the year.

Jackie said Sunshine doesn’t see her kind act as a big deal. She was just trying to look out for her friends. “She doesn’t understand the influence she’s brought about,” Jackie said. “But now she knows she can do whatever she puts her heart to.”

6 . Chinese Teapot Escaping from British Museum Goes Viral

Chinese state media has praised a viral video series telling the story of a jade teapot coming to life and fleeing the British Museum to make its way back home.

The set of three short videos, entitled Escape from the British Museum, shows the teapot turning into a young woman in a green dress, who then engages a London-based Chinese journalist to help her reunite with her family. It appears to have struck a chord (弦) in China after first being released by independent vloggers on Douyin. By Monday evening, it had reportedly received more than 310 million views. The plot line taps into growing Chinese criticism of the British Museum after reports last month that more than 1,500 priceless objects, including gold jewelry, semi-precious stones and glass, were missing, stolen or damaged.

In August the state media Global Times called for the return of Chinese artifacts from the museum “free of charge” in the wake of the controversy. “The huge holes in the management and security of cultural objects in the British Museum exposed by this scandal (丑闻) have led to the collapse of a long-standing and widely circulated claim that ‘foreign cultural objects are better protected in the British Museum’,” it said. It strongly supported the video series for touching on a “powerful message” about the importance of cultural heritage and reflecting “Chinese people’s desiring for the repatriation of the Chinese cultural relics.”

State broadcaster CCTV also gave the short films a glowing review saying: “We are very pleased to see Chinese young people are passionate about history and tradition... We are also looking forward to the early return of Chinese artifacts that have been displayed overseas.”

The museum scandal made headlines around the world and reawakened earlier demands by the Chinese media to restore the country’s relics. The new three-part show has triggered a wave of nationalism among viewers, with many praising the creative plot that reduced them to tears by showing how the teapot experienced the happiness of returning to China to see pandas and watch a flag-raising ceremony on Tiananmen Square.

7 . Endangered polar bears are breeding (繁殖) with grizzly bears (灰熊), creating “pizzly” bears, which is being driven by climate change, scientists say.

As the world warms and Arctic sea ice thins, starving polar bears are being forced ever further south, where they meet grizzlies, whose ranges are expanding northwards. And with that growing contact between the two come increasing hybrids (杂交种).

With characteristics that could give the hybrids an advantage in warming northern habitats, some scientists guess that they could be here to stay. “Usually, hybrids aren’t better suited to their environments than their parents, but these hybrids are able to search for a broader range of food sources,” Larisa DeSantis, an associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, told Live Science.

The rise of “pizzly” bears appears with polar bears’ decline: their numbers are estimated to decrease by more than 30% in the next 30 years. This sudden fall is linked partly to “pizzly” bears taking up polar bears’ ranges, where they outcompete them, but also to polar bears’ highly specialized diets.

“Polar bears mainly consumed soft foods even during the Medieval Warm Period, a previous period of rapid warming,” DeSantis said, referring to fat meals such as seals. “Although all of these starving polar bears are trying to find alternative food sources, like seabird eggs, it could be a tipping point for their survival.” Actually, the calories they gain from these sources do not balance out those they burn from searching for them. This could result in a habitat ready for the hybrids to move in and take over, leading to a loss in biodiversity if polar bears are replaced.

“We’re having massive impacts with climate change on species,” DeSantis said. “The polar bear is telling us how bad things are. In some sense, “pizzly” bears could be a sad but necessary compromise given current warming trends.”

8 . For people suffering from depression, there’s an all-natural treatment they should use — getting more exercise. It could help fight depression, even if people have a genetic risk, new research shows.

For the study, researchers collected information from nearly 8,000 people and found those with related genes were more likely to have depression over the next two years after examining them. But that was less likely for people who were more active at the study’s start, even if they had a family history of depression. Higher levels of physical activity helped protect even those with the highest genetic risk of depression.

Both high-intensity (高强度) exercise and low-intensity activities were associated with a reduced risk of depression. Adding four hours of exercise a week could lower the risk of a new episode (一段经历) of depression by 17%, according to the study. “Our findings strongly suggest that, when it comes to depression, being physically active has the potential to remove the added risk of future episodes in individuals who are genetically risky,” said lead author Karmel Choi. “On average, about 35 additional minutes of physical activity each day may help people to reduce their risk and protect against future depression episodes.”

Depression is a common mental illness globally, with more than 264 million people affected. “Depression is so ubiquitous, and that underlines the need for effective approaches that can impact as many people as possible,” Choi said. And mental health and primary care providers can use the findings to advise patients that there’s something meaningful they can do to lower their risk of depression.