Singing has always made Stephen Dunn, 64, of Melbourne, feel joyful. He occasionally sang with bands in the past. When he was diagnosed (诊断) with Parkinson’s disease two years ago, he remembered that his father, who’d also had the condition, lost his ability to sing as the disease progressed.

Hoping to prevent a similar fate, Stephen joined ParkinSong last year, a local group of Parkinson’s patients who meet monthly with a music therapist (治疗学家). They sing together and learn skills to help preserve their singing and speaking voices.

“The session involves vocal exercises, breathing exercises, correct posture and that sort of thing,” he says. “Our vocal cords (声带) are like any other muscle in our body. If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

Helping Parkinson’s patients maintain their voices is just one way that music therapy benefits people. A variety of music programmes can improve the mental or physical health of people with numerous diseases and conditions. There are no potential side effects, except, perhaps, getting a song stuck in your head.

When therapy is needed to relieve pain or maintain or restore function to the body, different options are available. Physical therapy can be effective, but repetitive exercises may be boring. Music can add an element of fun to therapy.

Music is an ideal motivator, because people have deep emotional responses to it on many levels; researchers and music therapists latch onto this to create treatments that can be as effective as, or more effective than, traditional therapies.

“Music’s so multi-dimentional,” says Jeanette Tamplin, a music therapist and research fellow at the University of Melbourne who’s involved with ParkinSong. “It can be very functional. Like you’re getting people to walk in time to music. Or it can help them to access emotions and process grief (悲伤) and adjustment through songs.”

Doctors recommend music therapy to treat certain conditions, and researchers are working to expand the reach of treatments.

When it comes to managing anxiety and other stresses of the modern world, connecting with nature can be the best medicine. In fact, according to The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, just 40 minutes of walking in a forest can lower the levels of the stress one feels. 【小题1】

Forest bathing was first developed as a healthcare method in 1980s, Japan, which is the practice of meditatively (沉思的) walking in nature as a way to calm the mind.

Scientifically, forest bathing is more than simply a cure for us overworked humans. 【小题2】 It has produced results such as reduced blood pressure, improved focus, increased energy, reduced stress, etc.

【小题3】 Some people are moved to express their sadness and cry, while others just feel a child—like joy.

“Whatever their reaction, people walk away feeling ‘That’s what I needed’,” says BenPage of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. “ 【小题4】 Our ancestors (祖先) evolved with nature, and we have forgotten how to have that open relationship.”

【小题5】 He has even organized a “forest walk” inside a senior care center, where he brought plants and other natural objects to a group of seniors who had different health and mental illnesses. “People with dementia (痴呆) were remembering things from their childhood,” Page said. “There was a real healing effect that took place.”

There are various infectious diseases in the world, which human beings have to fight with. In 2018 , measles (麻疹) infected almost 10 million people throughout the world, killing 142,000. Countries that achieved high vaccination (疫苗接种) rates or had formerly eradicated the disease also failed to have a narrow escape.

Fortunately, apart from troublesome measles, many inspirational global health stories happened in the last decade. New viruses, vaccines and treatments were discovered, once again showing the significance of science.

Huge progress was made in virus research. For instance, a kind of virus named Medusavirus, which can turn an amoeba, a kind of single-celled living creature, into a “stone”, was identified by Japanese scientists. The virus has one of the largest and most complicated viral genomes (基因组) that have ever been found. Besides, a new virus, Alongshan virus, was discovered in a group of patients in Inner Moggolia. Researchers also found for the first time that an insect RNA virus, the Providence virus, was able to infect plants and mammalian cells, which indicated that plants could serve as hosts of human viruses.

We also saw improvements in treatments and vaccines. Ebola virus is a good case in point. According to the Royal Free Hospital in Britain, the drug MIL 77, which had been developed by Academy of Millitary Medical Sciences, an institution in China, jointly with some other companies, was adopted to treat a Briton infected with the disease and helped her recover from the deadly virus. This has indicated China's capability of offering and economical and practical drug fighting Ebolavirus worldwide. Furthermore, the Chinese and British medical research teams have worked on genome sequencing of the virus, making it possible to develop drugs and vaccines that are more effective. Therefore, Ebola is no longer a death sentence.

Thanks to the investment in global supervision(监督), transnational partnership, and scientific research, many new viruses, vaccines and treatments were successfully discovered in the last decade. But the journey will continue and much more needs to be done. For example, we need to have a deeper understanding of how climate change influences the spread of infectious diseases.