I Can See You!
The optometrist helped three-year-old Andreas adjust his first pair of glasses. “Look in the mirror,” she said. Andreas glanced at his reflection, then turned to his father with a joyful and loving smile. Andreas’ father gently wiped …
The Masterpiece Within
Writing in The Atlantic, author Arthur C. Brooks tells of his visit to the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, which contains one of the largest collections of Chinese art in the world. The museum guide asked, “What do you think of when I ask you t…
Elegant Design
An international research team has created a flapping-wing drone that mimics the movements of a particular bird—the swift. Swifts can fly up to 90 miles per hour and are able to hover, plunge, turn quickly, and stop suddenly. The ornithopter dron…
Least Likely
Hollywood gives us larger than life spies who are dashing drivers of flashy Aston-Martins and other luxury sports cars. But Jonna Mendez, a former CIA chief, paints an opposite picture of the real thing. An agent must be “the little gray man,&rdq…
A Giver’s Heart
On our last day in Wisconsin, my friend brought her four-year-old daughter Kinslee to say goodbye. “I don’t want you to move,” said Kinslee. I hugged her and gave her a canvas, hand-painted fan from my collection. “When you miss…
Tend Your Garden
I was so excited to plant our backyard fruit and veggie garden. Then I started to notice small holes in the dirt. Before it had time to ripen, our first fruit mysteriously disappeared. One day I was dismayed to find our largest strawberry plant had bee…
God Calls Your Name
Natalia went to a different nation with the promise of receiving an education. But soon the father in her new home began physically and sexually abusing her. He forced her to care for his home and children without pay. He refused to let her go outside …
A Distinct Cry
When a baby cries, it’s a signal that she’s tired and hungry, right? Well, according to doctors at Brown University, subtle differences in a newborn’s cries can also provide important clues for other problems. Doctors have devised a c…
Reason for Fear
When I was a boy, the schoolyard was where bullies threw their weight around and kids like me received that bullying with minimal protest. As we cowered in fear before our tormenters, there was something even worse: their taunts of “Are you scare…
Compassion in Action
Building benches isn’t James Warren’s job. He started building them, however, when he noticed a woman in Denver sitting in the dirt while waiting for a bus. That’s “undignified,” Warren worried. So, the twenty-eight-year-o…