Many years ago，when I was fresh out of school and working in Denver，I was driving to my parents' home in Missouri for Christmas. I stopped at a gas station about 50 miles from Oklahoma City，where I was planning to stop and visit a friend. While I was standing in line at the cash register(收款台)，I said hello to an older couple who were also paying for gas.

    I took off ， but had gone only a few miles when black smoke poured from the back of my car. I stopped and wondered what I should do. A car pulled up behind me. It was the couple I had spoken to at the gas station. They said they would take me to my friend's. We chatted on the way into the city，and when I got out of the car，the husband gave me his business card.

    I wrote him and his wife a thank­you note for helping me. Soon afterward，I received a Christmas present from them. Their note that came with it said that helping me had made their holidays meaningful.

    Years later，I drove to a meeting in a nearby town in the morning. In late afternoon，I returned to my car and found that I'd left the lights on all day，and the battery(电池) was dead. Then I noticed that the Friendly Ford dealership—a shop selling cars—was right next door. I walked over and found two salesmen in the showroom. “Just how friendly is Friendly Ford？” I asked and explained my trouble. They quickly drove a pickup truck to my car and started it. They would accept no payment，so when I got home，I wrote them a note to say thanks. I received a letter back from one of the salesmen. No one had ever taken the time to write him and say thank you，and it meant a lot，he said.

    “Thank you”—two powerful words. They're easy to say and mean so much.

    You may have seen a talking parrot on a TV show, in a movie, or even in someone's home. The parrot has learned to copy sounds that people make. Birds are not the only animals that can copy the noises they hear. Dolphins, bats, and some apes also copy sounds. Now we can add elephants to this list of copycats.

    Dr. Joyce Poole is a zoologist. She studies the sounds of elephants. While she was in Kenya, she would hear strange noises made by Mlaika after sunset. Mlaika was a 10-year-old African elephant.

    Mlaika lived near a highway. Dr. Poole says, “I could not tell the difference between Mlaika's call and the distant truck noise.” She and other scientists studied Mlaika's sounds. It turned out that Mlaika was copying the sounds of the trucks driving by. Why would Mlaika copy trucks that she heard going by on the highway? Animals that are able to copy sounds may enjoy practicing new sounds. When they are kept outside of their natural environment, they may copy unusual sounds. That may be why an elephant would copy the sound of a truck.

    “Mlaika was not the only copycat elephant,” Dr. Poole says. Calimero is a 23-year-old male African elephant. He spent 18 years with two female Asian elephants. Asian elephants make chirping sounds (sounds made by birds) to talk with one another. African elephants usually do not make chirping sounds. But Calimero now does. He is copying his Asian elephant friends. Dr. Poole says that elephants need to form bonds with their family and friends. She says, “They make sounds to communicate with each other. When they are separated, they use sounds to keep in contact.”

    Parrots, dolphins, humans, and elephants show that being a copycat is one way that animals and people make new friends and keep old ones.

    Telepathy (心灵感应) is the ability to communicate without the use of the five senses. It's an instinct (本能) which can be woken up in times of emergency or need. When we feel that something is happening or about to happen by instinct，we're using resources within the unconscious (潜意识的) mind. When the resources of two persons' unconscious minds link together into the same frequency (频率)，we call it telepathy.

    We can either send or receive telepathy. If you know who is calling before you answer the ringing phone，you are probably a good receiver. If you think of a person and he/she calls you，you are most likely to be better at sending.

    You can easily put your ability to the test. Thinking of somebody and wish him or her to contact you. Be patient. The other person may not be a good receiver，but they should contact you much earlier than would normally be expected. Or whenever the phone rings，try ‘feeling' who is contacting you. Don't guess，but try to feel it with your mind. However，if neither of these works for you，that doesn't mean that you have no ability of telepathy. As mentioned earlier，telepathy is most likely to turn up in case of emergency.

    Telepathy dreams often contain telepathic messages. Two people may both dream of the other and find that their dreams have a clear connection. These people are probably linking to each other's unconscious mind.

    Telepathy & relationship. The more people spend time together，the more likely they are to be able to link up to the other's mind，especially when separated. There are two reasons for this. One is that they understand the other's mind through time spent together；the other is that there is usually a strong desire to communicate. A mother will often sense that her child is in danger. This is due to the child's eagerly wanting his or her mother，knowing that this is the person who would always want to be there for them，and the mother's deep desire to protect her child from harm.

    Welcome to Inspire 21!

    Our aim is to provide ”Inspiring words for the 21st century”. So, here we offer a unique collection of inspiring short stories, motivational short stories, and humorous short stories for you to read and share.

    If you do care to share, click the “SHARE”button in the bottom left corner of each page. And thanks for telling others about Inspire 21.

    The inspiring stories that are labeled(标记)“TRUE”are done so to the best of our knowledge, but we do not have full proof in some cases. However, all of these stories and messages are provided because of their uplifting content, whether true or not. Many books we've read and movies we've watched were totally untrue, but we enjoyed the inspiration they gave us—especially if they had a happy ending.

    So, please read and share these stories at your own discretion(判断力). Thank you for your understanding!

    Also, many of the inspiring stories used here are used with permission from the author. However, we cannot grant(授予) permission to reuse any of these inspirational stories, as the majority of them are not ours.

    Lastly, many inspiring stories(emailed to us or we came across online )are listed as “Author Unknown” If you happen to know the author's name, to whom credit should be given, please contact us with that information so we can keep our inspiring story collection accurate. Thank you again!

    Shopping for and choosing clothes is challenging enough. But imagine if you were unable to use your arms to do anything, or used a wheelchair.

    The conditions are reality for four people who became the "customers" of 15 students at Parsons School of Design at the New School this year. The students spent their spring term creating clothing to fit their customers' unique requirements as part of a class run by Open Style Lab, a nonprofit organization whose aim is to design functional and fashionable clothing for people with disabilities.

    "Disability overlaps (关联、一致) with aging and universal design," said Grace Jun, the director of the program. "We need to see it as part of our life cycle. It's something that we need to not only see from a human rights standpoint but also for its economic value."

    "I'm always looking at me being the problem and the clothing as being OK," said Kieran Kern, who gets around in a wheelchair. When Ms. Kern approached Open Style Lab, she was looking for a coat that would be easy to put on with the limitations of a weaker body. Her team came up with a design with a circular rod (杆) that runs through the collar and allows Ms. Kern to swing the coat across her back with one hand.

    "The idea of having a coat that sees the parts that make me as just parts and not as a problem that I need to solve was really liberating in an identity sense," Ms. Kern said. "Because generally, when you have a different body, you don't really see yourself."

    "I think the challenges the students faced throughout the course had a lot to do with the exchange of ideas," Ms. Jun said. "They were able to understand that no two people with a disability are alike. Being able to design uniquely means you have to have a collaborative (合作) process. We're designing with each other, not for."

    The vast majority of green sea turtles in the northern Great Barrier Reef are female because of warmer temperatures due to climate change, which influences their sex, researchers said. Scientists are concerned populations of these animals could turn almost completely female.

    A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California State University and Worldwide Fund for Nature Australia examined two genetically distinct populations of green sea turtles living in the Great Barrier Reef. The study found that a group of about 200,000 turtles living in the northern part of the reef was almost entirely female. While the southern population was 65 to 69 percent female, females in the northern group accounted for 99.1 percent of young turtles and 86.8 percent of adults.

    After combining their results with temperature data, the scientists found that most sea turtle populations are living above the most suitable temperature. The northern green turtles have been producing mainly females for more than two decades and that the complete feminization of this population is possible in the near future, making it clear that climate change is threatening the survival of these populations.

    Dermot O'Gorman, the chief executive of World Wildlife Fund Australia, said, “That's a very visible sign of the impact of climate change. But this is a quiet change.”

    O'Gorman said more urgent action on climate change is clearly needed, adding that some conservationists have already taken practical measures, such as using shade cloth on turtle nesting beaches to lower the sand temperature, and reducing by catch in the fishing industry.

    “Shade cloth can be used in certain places, but there's a limit to the scale you can do that,” he said, “Now every large male who can reproduce is going to be even more important.”