Last month, I said a final farewell to my lovely old dog, Oscar. I have been missing him terribly. Oscar went everywhere with me. He was my mascot of unconditional love, my loneliness relief and one of the big loves of my life.

Many scientific studies have shown that petting a dog and even having one nearby can reduce stress. Peter Wedderburn, a writer and veterinary surgeon, once said “Dogs become a central part of our lives, offering unconditional love, continual company and an alternative to loneliness. A dog is the ultimate loving companion.”

It’s no wonder I miss him. Oscar also gave structure to my day. His soft furry rub was my early morning wake-up call, plus his walks punctuated my day with a stress-relieving wander by the canal bank. Since his death, I have found myself lying in bed feeling a little low and unmotivated. I’m also spending hours at my desk and not getting out into the light all day.

I didn’t want my mood to spiral downwards, so I have started a new, gentle morning practice. I have decided to put my focus on lighting my fire----both literally and metaphorically. Mornings are cold on my canal boat, so what better way to heat things up than by creating a warming ritual(仪式).

As I piled up old newspapers, placed four logs on the pile and loaded up smokeless coal, I thought about the “fuel” I wanted to use today----the opportunities and tools available to me. Finally, I struck the match, which symbolized the “spark of inspiration”. As the fire started to burn, I wrote about someone or something that had inspired me as the flames slowly heated up the boat.

Oscar naturally lit up my days and life. Without him, I’m having to be more conscious about how I look after my mental health and mood, but I’m now starting to enjoy my new start to the mornings. I still miss my lovely dog, but I always end my morning practice by raising my mug of coffee in gratitude for the privilege of 13 years of love and light that he brought into my life. Love never dies.

Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, as is the case here, they even have tails! On October 11, 2021, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) honored Bear, an Australian Koolie, with the “Animal of the Year” Award.

“We think Bear really deserved (应得) this award because he’s been such a good boy in helping us find and rescue a lot of koalas, especially during the bushfires. He works throughout the year to help us in our job to make a better and safer place for koalas,” says Bear’s owner, Dr. Romane Cristescu of the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Bear’s backstory is all too familiar for rescue dogs. His previous owners found his “endless energy and uncontrollable love for play” too much to control and decided to give him up for adoption (收养). They reached out to the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Detection Dogs for Conservation team. Within minutes, the trainers knew he would be a perfect rescue dog. Bear owned a good sense of smell. More importantly, he had no interest in killing the animals he found. All he wanted to do was play!

Between November 2019 and April 2020, the brave canine managed to find out over 100 injured koalas in forests. In May 2020, Cristescu told Newsweek,“We have found some koalas with burns, but many have less visible injuries. We have found some koalas seriously injured. We also have found koalas that are too young to be on their own in the bush and must have been separated from their mums during the fire.

“Bear is a truly amazing dog highlighting the important and positive relationships between animals and humans,” James Sawyer, the UK director of IFAW, said.

Nenad Sestan was working in his office one afternoon in 2016, when he heard his lab members whispering with excitement over a microscope. He realized something beyond their expectations was happening.

The researchers, at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, had found electrical activity in brains taken from dead pigs. With that shocking result, Sestan realized what had started as a side project to find ways to better preserve brain tissue for research had changed into a discovery that could redefine our understanding of life and death.

The excitement soon turned to concern, when the researchers thought they saw widespread, consistent electrical activity which can indicate consciousness( 意识 ). Sestan brought in a neurologist, who determined the readout was actually an error, but the possibility had frightened them.

Sestan kept his cool and immediately did two things: he shut down the experiment and contacted the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as a Yale bioethicist(生物伦理学家). Over the next few months, experts discussed the potential ethical implications, such as whether the brains could become conscious and whether physicians needed to reconsider the definition of brain death.

They submitted the work to Nature. But before the final paper was published, Sestan met sharp criticism from the press. Some even suggested that the researchers were engineering immortality(永生), or maintaining a room full of living brains in jars. Neither he nor his team wanted to discuss the results until the paper was out, but as their inboxes filled with concerns and anger from animal rights activists and futurists, Sestan became depressed. He felt all they could do, however, was to hold off on correcting public misunderstandings until the expert review process had run its course.

Since the paper was published in April, 2019, the team has been so busy fielding questions from the media and scientists that it hasn’t performed any further experiments. Sestan wants to focus on his original questions and explore how long the brains can be maintained and whether the technology can preserve other organs.

“We want to get outside opinion before we do anything,” Sestan says. “When you explore uncharted territory, you have to be extremely thoughtful.”