I'm part of the Roots & Shoots program founded by Dr. Jane Goodall. The program is intended to make and promote positive changes in the world. As Dr. Goodall says, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

    In Bulgaria, where I live, homeless dogs are everywhere. Many people here turn a blind eye to them. But I cannot ignore the life of a street dog whenever I see one wandering in the street, looking for something to eat. That's why I'm no longer a food waster. When I see wasted food, I always think of a hungry dog climbing to garbage bins, searching for food that people have thrown there. When eating in a restaurant, I'm not afraid to take leftover food to feed stray cats or dogs.

    A week ago, I saw a homeless dog around the garbage bins. Immediately I knelt down, spoke to her softly and ran my hands over her. I could see that she had had puppies. I couldn't imagine how she could have been able to care for them. Hours earlier, I'd bagged up a plate of leftover fish. As I unwrapped it, she wagged her tail and sniffed at it. She ate all the fish in no time.

    It's sad, isn't it? I can't understand why many of us waste so much and think little of it. These homeless animals have taught me that food is precious. Even when I don't have leftovers with me, I'll take the time to get something from the grocery store to feed them.

    I know my power is small, so I hope that next time you see wasted food, do turn it into worthy food. You have the power to save a life!

    On a February day during an unusually mild winter, found myself missing the snowy beauty. I enjoyed the feeling that comes from watching snow fall gently from heaven while I'm cosy inside with a good fire burning in the stove. But there were more serious concerns, like the lack of rainfall making our woods more accessible to summer forest fires. Local ski fields and hotels, all dependent on a snowy season, felt sorry for the vacant lifts, empty restaurants and unused snowmobiles.

    Then I happened to see three little robins (知更鸟) fly into our yard. What were they doing here? West of us, in the Willamette Valley, wild flowers burst this time of year. But here in central Oregon, even if a groundhog (土拨鼠) had wanted to appear, it couldn't have broken through the frozen earth. And yet, these robins had arrived.

    Their presence brought me a flow of happiness. It felt like a celebration as I dug into my bag of birdseed and spread a handful on the ground. Above me, the deep blue sky was cloudless, perfectly quiet but for some smoke from a neighbor's chimney. The lively cold made the air fresh and clean.

    My robins jumped lightly toward the seed. My soul jumped with them, feeling equally carefree. Caught up in the moment of spring fever, I checked our snowless flower beds. To my delight, I spotted a green branch sticking out through the brown soil.

    Despite the cold, I wasn't ready to go back inside. Just a short meeting with those robins had renewed my spirit. The next day I would return to my outdoor work with a cheerful heart and a hopeful eye for these signs of spring.

    Basketball Statistician Help Wanted

    The Athletic Department is looking for students to help assist staff during the Fall 2016, Winter 2016-17 and Spring 2017 semesters. Students in this position will be keeping live statistics during basketball games. Students must meet all of the following requirements:

    Good computer skills

    Available evenings and weekends

    Knowing basketball rules and statistics

    Students interested in working for the Athletic Department should contact the Athletic Coordinator at their respective campuses.

    TP/SS Athletic Coordinator, Michael Simone, 240-567-1308

    Rockville Athletic Coordinator, Jorge Zuniga, 240-567-7589

    Springfield Athletic Coordinator, Gary Miller, 240-567-2273

    Germantown Athletic Coordinator, Gauri Chavan, 240-567-6915

    Will it matter if you don't take your breakfast? Recently a test was given in the United States. Those testes included people of different ages, from 12 to 83. During the experiment, these people were given all kinds of breakfast, and sometimes they got no breakfast at all. Special tests were set up to see how well their bodies worked when they had eaten a certain kind of breakfast. The results show that if a person eats a proper breakfast, he or she will work with better effort than if he or she has no breakfast. This fact appears to be especially true if a person works with his brains. If a student eats fruit, eggs, bread and milk before going to school, he will learn more quickly and listen with more attention in class. Contrary to what many people believe, people become so hungry at noon that they eat too much for lunch, and end up gaining weight instead of losing. You will probably lose more weight if you reduce other meals.

    When the telephone rings late at night, most women guess it must be one of only four or five people calling. A sister? Maybe. An emergency? Possibly. A mother? Probably not at that time of night. Much more probably it is a close female friend calling to tell you that she is heartbroken because she has split up with her boyfriend again or perhaps simply that a good movie has just started on TV.

    At a time when families are spread far and wide and marriages often end in divorce, friendships are becoming more and more important. Erika, a 32-year-old lawyer, is strengthened by her ten year friendship with her married friend Jane. "I was very sick one night, so I called Jane at about 3：00 a. m. to talk about it," she says. "She was very supportive and even came over to take me to the doctor's."

    As American TV shows like Friends have become more popular, many of us are beginning to see the value of such friendships.TV shows like this tell us that our romantic relationships may not last, but we need to keep in touch with our close friends if we want to survive.

    With Erika's family 200 miles away, it is Jane who keeps a spare set of keys to Erika's apartment and waters her plants whenever she is away. "Having Jane around gives me a certain amount of freedom. It is not the kind of thing that you could ask anyone to do, but she knows I would do the same for her. "Jane, who may move to a different city soon, is worried about leaving such a support system of friends. "My friends have more to do with my life than my parents and, therefore, I don't have to spend a lot of time explaining things to them. Friends are more up to date with what is happening."

Iman, the last Sumatran rhino(犀牛) in Malaysia, died in 2019 — bringing the endangered species one step closer to extinction. Now, Malaysian scientists are hoping to use tissues and cells from Iman and other dead rhinos to bring the population back.

"Before the three rhinos (the last survivors in Malaysia) died, we got their cells, and the cells are still alive — which is why I'm quite confident," Dr. Lokman said. "If we don't have any cells, or have just tissue that isn't living anymore, we wouldn't be able to do anything. But now we have a living thing that we can use. "

The cells came from the rhinos'hearts, lungs and brains. What is the most important is that the team collected stem cells (干细胞). One possible approach is to develop these stem cells into an egg (卵子) and sperm (精子), to create an embryo (胚胎) that will be placed into a surrogate mother (代孕母亲). She will likely be another rhino, either a Sumatran rhino from another country or another species. The other method is to take the egg of a surrogate animal, remove the nucleus (细胞核), and join it with a Sumatran rhino's body cell. This technique was famously used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1996. Dr. Lokman and his colleagues are trying both ways. The team is still in the early stages; next, they need to find a suitable surrogate female.

Sumatran rhinos are listed as critically endangered by the World Wildlife Fund. There are less than 80 alive in Indonesia and Thailand. The fall in the population was first caused by hunting. Later, the situation was worsened by the loss of habitats and human activity. Unfortunately, there are now only five remaining rhino species worldwide, and all are threatened. Some sub-species have already died out; the western black rhino was declared extinct in 2013. And it is a pity that the last male northern white rhino died in 2019.