If you’re a lover of the great outdoors and fancy yourself as a bit of a discoverer, then you’ll want to know about the best national parks in the world. National parks are full of wonders. Exploring one is your chance to get back to nature.

Etosha means “great white area”, which refers to the park’s huge salt area. When it rains, the water pools attract hundreds of thousands of pretty flamingos (火烈鸟) to the park. And yet there is more to Etosha National Park than flamingos. Expect to see lions, elephants, leopards and two kinds of zebra as you venture around the park.

You will find Yellowstone National Park atop a volcano hot spot in Wyoming, but the thing that will explode will be your mind as you immerse yourself in the dramatic canyon, lush forests, and alpine rivers. Yellowstone is one of the best national parks in the world to study the geological activity of the Earth.

Prepare to lay your eyes on volcanic landscapes situated in a UNESCO World Heritage Site at Göreme National Park in Turkey. Hike the high hills, explore nearby villages and witness stunning multi-colored cliffs formed from basalt. Göreme National Park is one of the best national parks in the world for hot air ballooning.

The largest national park in the United Kingdom, the Cairngorms provide exceptional wildlife and birdlife —including some of the rarest birds of prey in Europe. Hill climbers will be kept busy with the 55 munros (a mountain peak higher than 3000 feet) in the park.

In 2015, Brian Peterson and his wife, Vanessa, had just moved to Santa Ana, California. Outside the couple’s apartment, a homeless man was often yelling on the street corner.

One day, Peterson was relaxing in his living room, reading the book Love Does, about the power of love in action, when his quiet was disturbed by the homeless man. Inspired by the book’s compassionate message. Peterson made an unexpected decision: He was going to go outside and introduce himself.

In that first conversation, Peterson learned that the man’s name was Matt Faris. He’d moved to Southern California from Kentucky to pursue a career in music, but he soon fell on hard times and ended up living on the street for more than a decade.

“It was the weirdest thing to me,” Peterson recalled later. “I saw beauty on the face of a man who hadn’t shaved in probably a year. But his story, the life inside of him, inspired me.” And even though Peterson hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in about eight years, he found himself asking if he could pain Faris’s portrait. Faris said yes.

Peterson’s connection with Faris led him to form Faces of Santa Ana, a nonprofit organization focused on befriending and painting portraits of members of the community who are unhoused Peterson sells the portrait for a few thousand dollars, putting half of the profits into what he calls a “love account” for his model. He then helps people use the money to get back on their feet.

Many of Peterson’s new friends use the donations to secure immediate necessities — medical care hotel rooms, food. Faris used the funds from his portrait to record an album, fulfilling his musical dreams. When the check was delivered, “they both wept in my arms,” Peterson recalls.

Having painted 41 of these portraits himself, he’s discovered that the buyers tend to connect to the story of the person in the painting, finding similarities and often friendship with someone they might have otherwise overlooked or stereotyped.

“People often tell me, ‘I was the one that would cross the street. But I see homeless people differently now,’” Peterson says. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

Wu Wuliu, a visual designer based in Shanghai, recently caused significant controversy online when he used AI to “bring his late grandmother back to life” and engaged in a conversation with her in the video he posted

After mimicking his late grandmother’s appearance, voice, personality, and memories through AI applications, Wu input her photos into the programs to create a lifelike image and uploaded her verbal messages to simulate her voice and accent. Finally, he turned the AI-generated language into conversations between him and his “grandmother”, who can blink, nod, and even laugh heartily. When Wu asked her if she had prepared holiday goods for the Spring Festival, she responded in dialect, “I bought two bottles of cooking oil and they smell good.”

Upon the release of the video, it gained popularity on Bilibili, accumulating over 670,000 views and receiving thousands of likes from netizens. Nevertheless, the comments section was filled with heated debates. Some netizens said they were deeply moved by the video as it reminded them of their own deceased loved ones, believing that such actions help convey their grief and are meaningful. On the other hand, many netizens could not accept Wu’s approach, claiming it to be “disrespectful of life” Some argued that technology like this should be banned, as it may lead to an “existential crisis”. There were also concerns that scammers might take advantage of Al technology for fraudulent (诈骗的) purposes.

Wu said in an interview that he posted the video to honor his grandmother, who brought him up as a child and died in January. They were only able to exchange a few simple words during her last days leaving him not coping with the loss. By “talking” with her, Wu said he could ease the pain of his loss.

“From a psychological perspective, compared to traditional items such as photographs and personal belongings. AI technology can better preserve the image and personality of deceased loved ones, providing comfort to those who are grieving,” said Chen Zhilin, a psychological counselor. “However, over-reliance on it should be avoided. More importantly, we must learn to cherish the present.”

The old saying that “laughter is the best medicine” may contain an element of truth when it comes to heart health. A research has demonstrated that laughing causes the tissue inside the heart to expand and increases oxygen flow around the body.

“Our study found that laughter treatment increased the functional capacity of the cardiovascular (心血管的) system, and patients with heart disease who engaged in a course of laughter treatment had reduced inflammation (炎症) and better health.” said the lead author, Prof Marco Safffi, of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre in Brazil.

In the trial, scientists carried out a first-of-its-kind study to examine if laughter treatment could improve symptoms of patients with heart disease. It involved 26 adults with an average age of 64, all diagnosed with the heart disease caused by plaque (斑块) buildup in the walls of the arteries (动脉) that supply blood to the heart. Over three months, half were asked to watch two different hour-long comedy programmes each week, including funny popular sitcoms. The other half watched two different serious documentaries, about heavy topics such as politics or the Amazon rainforest.

At the end of the 12-week study period, the comedy group improved by 10% in a test measuring how much oxygen their heart could pump around the body. The group also improved in a second measure that tested how well arteries can expand. They also had a blood test to measure several inflammatory markers, which indicate how much plaque has built up in the blood vessels and whether people are at risk of heart attack or stroke. The results showed that their inflammatory markers had significantly reduced compared with the documentary group.

“When patients with heart disease arrive at hospital, they usually have a lot of inflammatory markers.” said Saffi. “It’s really good news that laughter treatment is a good intervention that could help reduce inflammation and decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke.”