Recently, a painting of actress Elizabeth Taylor, which was drawn by American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, sold for US $63 million. Another simple black-and-white image of a Coca-Cola bottle sold for US $35 million. But the all-time record for a Warhol painting is $100 million for a piece titled “Eight Elvises”. What's amazing is not that the pieces sold for so much, but the fact that they are not what you would call traditional art. They are “pop art”, art based on simple images of things and people from advertising, movies, music and day-to-day life.

    Born in the 1920s, Warhol grew up mostly separated from other children due to (由于) health problems. He spent a lot of his time alone drawing and then went on to study art in college. He began his career as a commercial (商业的) artist, creating pictures for magazine articles and newspaper ads. That inspired him to experiment with pop art and he hosted America's first pop art exhibition in the 1960s. The show met with a lot of discussion with some people saying that what he was doing was not art.

    Warhol followed his first works with a series we are all familiar with — paintings of Coca-Cola bottles, Brillo soap pad boxes, and portraits (肖像) of famous people. Soon after, Warhol stopped creating his own artwork. Instead, he had assistants and other artists create them at his studio called “The Factory”. Warhol wanted to show the world that art doesn't have to be complex or original; it can be created by anyone using ordinary things.

    Today, Warhol's work is unmistakable in its uniqueness. No matter how you may feel about his work, one thing cannot be argued. He introduced the world to a whole new art form, inspiring future generations of artists, and eventually becoming one of the most famous and successful pop art artists in the world.

    At any discussion of a job offer, money can be a deal breaker. Negotiating an attractive deal, however, can be hard for many job candidates because they lack the necessary skills or simply because they're too concerned that pushing for a high salary can cost them the job.

    These factors certainly can be hurdles (障碍), but it doesn't mean that you give up trying to get the best deal you can get. Needless to say, if money isn't a big factor in your decision, you still need to make sure that the deal you're accepting is fair compared to what's offered in the market. Selling yourself short once can impact your future salaries and set you back financially.

    Here are common mistakes that many jobseekers commit in negotiating money.

    Negotiate too early. Timing is of essence in any negotiation, and negotiating a salary too early in the process can cost you dearly. Many employers, in fact, rank this as one of the biggest mistakes job candidates make. The best timing to begin a salary discussion is after you and your future employer are nearly sure that you've been selected for the position.

    Abandon professionalism. It's common that people, after going through a long recruitment process, can be shocked that the salary offered is significantly below their expectations. If you find yourself in this situation, don't abandon your professional attitude or throw a fit. This likely will get you nowhere except the door.

    There're two options to this situation: the first is that the employer is inflexible (不灵活的) about the budget, and in this case, you may just leave and make a graceful exit from the hiring process.

    The second option is that there's some negotiation room for the hiring manager with other decision makers in the organization. If this is the case, you may be surprised that a final push with a positive attitude and a well-delivered presentation about your skills and market price can get you closer to your expected salary. Still, if this is not acceptable, you don't have to take it.

    It was Mother's Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Teayson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her bead on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.

    Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. Ile said to me. “Mums it's not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”

    At the front of the supermarket a charity group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should boy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he'd come up such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can't take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”

    By now paramedics(救援人员) had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her.

    Instead I gave the flower to the woman's husband and told him. “My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”

    At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son, Happy Mother's Day to you.”

The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.

    It's common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.

    A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that's 15.4 degrees off to the observer's right­well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, "She's not looking at you." This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person's gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the "Mona Lisa effect" . That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person's gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.

    This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don't cut the gaze of the character to that side­surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn't looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.

    Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars(虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the "Mona Lisa" and realized she wasn't looking at him.

    To make sure it wasn't just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the "Mona Lisa" on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected Mona Lisa's gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa's gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the "Mona Lisa" portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.

    So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn't sure. It's possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term "Mona Lisa effect" just thought it was a cool name.

    Fights at school sometimes happen. But how can you keep away from a fight? Here's something you can do.

    Be calm (冷静). Sometimes, you feel so angry that you really want to teach somebody a lesson. But being angry can't solve problems. Neither can a fight. Instead, it may bring you more problems. In the school, everyone involved (卷入) in a fight will be punished, no matter who started it. There are winners in a fight.

    Shout loudly. If you know someone is coming up behind you to attack, turn toward the person with your hands up in front of your body and loudly say "stop" before walking away. Loud voice can usually make the attacker calm down. If the person doesn't stop, cry for help by calling out the name of a teacher whose office is nearby.

              . Your friend may ask you to join in a fight. Learn to say no. Helping him fight is not really helpful to him. If you really want to give him a hand, try to ask him to give it up. Also, you can tell him if he gets involved in a fight, he may get hurt and be punished. Then, try to learn why he wants a fight and help him find a right way to deal with the problem.