It doesn’t matter when and how much a person sleeps, but everyone needs some rest to stay alive. That’s what all doctors thought, until they heard about Herpin. Herpin, it was said, never slept. Could this be true? The doctors decided to see this strange man themselves.

Herpin was 90 years old when the doctors came to his home in New Jersey. They thought for sure that he got some sleep of some kind. So they stayed with him and watched every movement he made. But they were surprised. Though they watched him hour after hour and day after day, they never saw him sleeping. In fact, he did not even own a bed. He never needed one.

The only rest that Herpin sometimes got was sitting in a comfortable chair and reading newspapers. The doctors were puzzled by this strange continuous sleeplessness. They asked him many questions, hoping to find an answer. They found only one answer that might explain his condition. Herpin remembered some talk about his mother having been injured several days before he was born. But that was all. Was this the real reason? No one could be sure. Herpin died at the age of 94.

During the first half of the year 2020, Australia experienced an extreme drought followed by disastrous bushfires and heavy rainfall that brought massive flooding. Next came the pandemic（流行病）. With people not coming in to the lab or staying only long enough to conduct their experiments, we lost our sense of interpersonal connection. Then, in July, our director shared that she had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer.

In the wake of that shocking announcement, one of the center’s group leaders suggested we send our director weekly good news to keep her informed and to try to lift her spirits. One week later, we sent the first email.

The effect of this simple newsletter — which went to our director and all the group members as well as leaders — was significant. “I love good news time,” a colleague wrote, “It really is uplifting.”

These days, we solicit good news every Wednesday and send out an email every Friday. The process and format are simple and no-frills, making the newsletter sustainable. Good news includes securing grants and fellowships, much-needed new computers arriving, a student submitting their thesis, publishing papers, becoming parents, turning 40, and — of course — growing roses on one’s balcony.

Last month, one group leader’s good news was that, after breaking his arm, he finally had his cast（石膏）removed. The next week, he reported that his daughter broke her arm, saying that the number of broken bones in his family is a conserved quantity. It wasn’t exactly good news, but it did make me laugh quietly. Equally important, sharing it helps us stay connected in these difficult times.

Regardless of what the future holds, we plan to continue to share our good news.