【推荐3】Scientists Diego Kersting and Cristina Linares have found that some coral species are able to recover from harmful warming events through a unique survival strategy（策略）—known as “rejuvenescence”（新生）—among corals in the Mediterranean Sea. The findings represent some rare good news for corals around the world,which are facing numerous severe threats—most notably,climate change.

“The main threats are climate change, overfishing, pollution and coastal urbanization,” Kersting said. “But currently, climate change is probably the one causing the most coral cover declines. Warming stresses corals up to a point that may cause death. Some corals bleach（白化）before dying. Other corals do not bleach but die directly.” He went on, “Our findings are significant because this survival strategy was only known from fossil corals that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. It is the first time that it has been found in a living coral. Thanks to our findings, we know now that some corals are able to recover, but unfortunately this is not enough in the currentclimate change context.”

For their research, Kersting and Linares monitored 243 colonies of the endangered reef-building coral Cladocoracaespitosa in Spain’s Columbretes Islands Marine Reserve over 16 years. The monitoring revealed that Cladocoracaespitosa in the Mediterranean uses rejuvenescence to cope with warming events. This process involves the polyps — or the individual coral animals in a colony—shrinking inward and abandoning their skeletons（骨骼）during warm periods, before rejuvenating at a later point. “What happens is that some polyps in a coral colony—sometimes just one—reduces completely its dimensions and partially retreats from its skeleton,”Kersting said. “Once the stressful event is over, the shrunken or rejuvenated polyp recovers its size and builds up a new skeleton. Eventually, it begins to reproduce itself through budding and begins to cover the deadcolony surfaces.”

He continued, “The results were very surprising because I started to observe colonies that were dead years ago, that were showing living parts many years after their death.”

【推荐1】Perhaps Vincent van Gogh (1853—1890) isn't the most famous artist in the world, but his story is certainly the best­known. It is such a sad story. Here was a man who failed, or who didn't care to succeed, at every practical thing in life, but succeeded at one thing that was not very practical at all.

This year marks the 125th anniversary of his death. An art exhibition, in which projections of more than 3000 photos of the artist's masterpieces are shown, is in Beijing until Dec. 6.

However, the paintings that made him famous after his death did little for him when he was alive.

Van Gogh was born to quite a rich family in The Netherlands. His first work was for an art dealer. That work wasn't enjoyable for him, so next he tried teaching in England. Always a religious man, Vincent wanted to be a priest (牧师), but failed the exams. He eventually found religious work as a missionary (传教士)．

Van Gogh found something else to believe in when he lived in a small mining town in Belgium­art. There,   he returned to his childhood love of painting and drawing.

One thing that people, even people who don't find art memorable, remember about Van Gogh's paintings is the way he used colors.

The paintings he painted in Arles in the south of France after he moved there—thousands of them—came from changes in French art in the period after 1850. The Impressionists wanted to show the world as it felt to them, not always as it looked. They developed new ways of painting to do this.

Van Gogh was the most important artist of a generation   that built on what the Impressionists did. You can feel the way other viewers feel at the sight of his wheat   fields, town scenes and portraits because of the way he used color. In Wheatfield with Crows (1890) the colors are natural. Corn is yellow, grass is green, and crows are black. But they are used in such a way that when we look at the painting, the last thing we see is a photograph.

His life had a sad, early ending. He had mental problems, which led him to cut off his ear and eventually die by shooting himself. Arguably, it wasn't the art that gave him mental problems. That’s a cliché (陈词滥调). What made him so sad may have been the difficulty of working as an artist in a practical world.

【推荐2】Han Tianheng picked up a carving knife at the age of 6 and never put it down. Today, the 79 year-old artist, one of China’s most respected living masters of seal carving(印章雕刻), calligraphy and Chinese painting, still remembers the incident the first time he held a knife in his hand.

“I cut my thumb badly and was scared by the bloody sight,” he said, adding that his mother applied ashes because she couldn’t afford to take him to a hospital. “The cut left a scar, which is still clear today.”

An eye for an eye and blood for blood, the incident didn’t set him back. Instead, it aroused his passion for the ancient art form. He was determined to pursue a path that would lead to a career in seal carving. Han said.

The journey of art exploration was a little bumpy for the young man in his pursue for excellence, and his seal works were seriously criticized by a famous old painter.

Most would have crumbled under the criticism, not Han. It made him even more determined. After six months’ hard work, he visited the painter again.

“This time, he asked me to carve a seal for him. This was positive affirmation,” Han said. “Praise is candy and criticism is medicine. We can live without candy, but cannot live without medicine when ill.”

Han rose to fame during the early 1960s famous for bird and insect seal art. Han’s seals are an essential ending part on the paintings of a long list of well-known artists.

“A seal for a good painting is like the buttons for an haute couture(高档女子时装). An experienced tailor always knows how to choose buttons that matches the whole style. What’s more, a good seal carver should keep his own style, and at the same time go well with the painting’s style.” he said.