Kurt Kuenne’s famous short film Validation doesn’t ask us to have faith in human nature, it urges us to create it by concentrating on the goodness and dignity of ordinary people. 

In Slow, another film from Kuenne, a frustrated traffic safety worker changes his mind about his uneventful life after accidentally being caught in a newspaper photograph.

Watch it online: Slow

‘If I can help one girl, why not five? Why not ten?’ That's what Maggie Doyne asked herself after paying seven dollars for a Nepalese child’s school fees during a gap year trip.

More fascinating facts you never knew about smiling:

One smile can give the same level of brain stimulation as 2000 bars of chocolate.

Smiling can be as stimulating as receiving £16,000 in cash.

When you smile others think you are more competent.

Unborn babies smile.

Your smile can be a predictor of how long your marriage lasts.

Read more from Ron Gutman on the power of the smile.

When Dave deBronkart was told he was dying, he went online, linked up with other cancer patients, and found a life-saving treatment his doctors hadn’t heard of, writes Geraldine Betz. 

A delightful visual diary of a flight from New York to Berlin created by illustrator Christoph Niemann. And what are those little holes in the airplane window for?

How did the child of drug addicted parents get herself off the streets of New York City to Harvard University?  When she was 16 years old Elizabeth Murray’s mother died of drug-related illness and she determined that her own life would be different.