【推荐2】Workers at the National Galleries of Scotland recently experienced quite a surprise after they X-rayed a painting by Vincent van Gogh. Hidden on the back of the painting Head of a Peasant Woman, which Van Gogh completed in 1885, was a self-portrait (自画像) of the Dutch painter. No one had ever found it.

The hidden self-portrait had been covered by glue and cardboard that had been attached to the back of the painting. “It was absolutely exciting,” Lesley Stevenson, the museum’s worker, said about the discovery. “We weren’t expecting much of the little painting when we performed the scans,” she said. But museum experts quickly changed their expectations when they looked at the X-rays. “We didn’t see much of the peasant woman, but we saw the lead white that Van Gogh used for his face showing up after the X-ray went through the cardboard,” she added.

Van Gogh painted Head of a Peasant Woman as part of a series of works focused on the working-class residents of Nuenen, a small farming community in the southern part of the Netherlands where he lived briefly in the 1880s. The woman in the painting is Gordina de Groot, a farm worker. She wears a white headpiece. In a letter that Van Gogh penned about the series in 1885 to Anton Kerssemakers, a friend, he described his excitement at his working-class subjects. “I’m working with great pleasure these days, for I would rather paint people than paint anything else,” he wrote.

Van Gogh also loved creating self-portraits, producing about 20 paintings of himself by the end of his life while he was living in Paris. Recreating his own image was a cheap way for him to practice portraiture as he didn’t have to spend money hiring models, according to a report.

Art historians at the National Galleries hope that the hidden self-portrait may help us understand the life of the artist. The museum is currently considering how to best remove the unwanted protective materials without harming the painting.

【推荐3】You may think of me as delicious and nutritious, the sight of me packed into cans of school lunches. But here’s what adults hide from the kids: There’s very little that’s gentle about me. One of the ocean’s fastest fish, I can grow to be 1,500 pounds, and I fetch millions at Japanese fish markets. Forget the “chicken of the sea”. I am the Schwarzenegger of the sea, the strongest and most powerful.

I’m honored in cave paintings dating back to 3000 BC. Coins from 2000 BC feature me on one side. Five years ago, modern Navy scientists confirmed just how perfectly evolved I am for efficient speed: They modeled their new underwater spy drone (无人机), The GhostSwimmer, on me.

How is it that the price of my raw meat ranges from a dollar to a hundred? In fact, the fish you generally call tuna is actually seven species of fish, Bluefin, as the largest, is at the top of the food chain. Along with Bigeye and Yellowfin, it is one of the three most favored tunas by customers. Skipjack, commercially my most important variety, is easier to catch, thus accounting for $18 billion of the $42 billion worth of me that gets sold each year. I can be delicious canned, provided you don’t be mean with the mayo (蛋黄酱) or, for a more heart healthy tuna salad, the olive oil. Considering mercury (汞) levels in canned “light” Skipjack, it’s also recommended that women of childbearing age dine on me in that form no more than once a week.

If you want to do right by the ocean, however, choose troll-caught or pole-and-line-caught tuna. These “one fish, one hook” methods hunt me without nearly as much unwanted fish. Longlines or huge nets, often wipe out entire schools. Don’t forget that getting rid of a top-level fish like me has severe consequences all the way down the food chain.

【推荐1】“To be a musician, it’s like fulfilling a part of your life that can’t be replaced. It’s something that I enjoy and I love to do and I get a satisfaction from it.”

That is Renald Richard. Born in 1925 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, just west of New Orleans, Richard’s memories of childhood are filled with music. His father played the piano by ear.     1     So at the age of six, Richard started piano lessons at home.

At the age of 13, Renald Richard went to see a band perform at a church dance. It was very amazing and he decided to play the trumpet.     2     Then in Houston, Texas in 1954, Richard was approached by Jeff Brown, the manager of musician Ray Charles. He recalled, “    3     He just got a hit record out and he would be interested in you playing the trumpet in the band. Would you like to do that? Of course. Ray Charles. I said ‘yes’!”

    4     “First of all, to be selected by Ray Charles was an honor to me. I was honored by that and a little nervous.” In time, Richard became Charles’ bandleader. Richard stayed friendly with Ray Charles over the years.     5     Four years later, he moved again, this time to New York City.

Over the years, Richard has written many other songs that have been recorded by artists or bands including Joe Turner, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley, to name but a few.

Renald Richard retired from teaching in 1991.