Most people know that Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice. However, few people know that she was also the mother of a Nobel Prize winner.

    Born in September, 1897, Irene Curie was the first of the Curies' two daughters. Along with nine other children whose parents were also famous scholars, Irene studied in their own school, and her mother was one of the teachers. She finished her high school education at the College of Sevigne in Paris.

    At the age of 17 Irene entered the University of Paris to prepare for a degree in mathematics and physics. When World War I began, Irene went to help her mother, who was using X-ray facilities(设备) to help save the lives of wounded soldiers. Irene continued the work by developing X-ray facilities in military hospitals in France and Belgium. Her services were recognized in the form of a Military's Medal by the French government.

    In 1918, Irene became her mother's assistant at the Curie Institute. In December 1924, Frederic Joliot joined the Institute, and Irene taught him the techniques required for his work. They soon fell in love and were married in 1926. Their daughter Helene was born in 1927 and their son Pierre five years later.

    Like her mother, Irene combined family and career. Like her mother, Irene was awarded a Nobel Prize, along with her husband, in 1935. Unfortunately, also like her mother, she developed leukemia because of her work with radioactivity(辐射能). Irene Joliot-Curie died from leukemia on March 17, 1956.

    China Merchants Bank Co Ltd has teamed up with ride-hailing major Didi Kuaidi to provide automobile financing and expand its reach in China's booming mobile payment industry.

    The two have inked a comprehensive partnership, which includes a strategic investment by the former in the latter. Under the partnership, CMB will become the first bricks-and-mortar bank that can offer in-app credit card payments to Didi users. At present, users of Didi can only choose third-party payment solutions like WeChat Payment and Alipay to pay cab fares.

    Zhao Ju, vice-president of CMB, said the cooperation with Didi was an important step in its mobile Internet finance strategy. “CMB's mobile payment is going to enter a new chapter by leveraging Didi Kuaidi's vast user base,” he said.

    According to a report by China Internet Network Information Center earlier this month, Didi holds 87.2 percent of China's private car hailing market. The company said it has received 1.43 billion car-hailing requests on its platforms in 2015, which means 1.43 billion payments were made via smartphones.

    CMB is expected to use Didi to reach the core users of China's mobile payment market. Jean Liu, president of Didi, said many of the expats prefer payment by credit card rather than Alipay or WeChat. “The new partnership will help improve service quality and customer loyalty,” she said. The investment makes CMB part of Didi's existing investors, including Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and China Investment Corporation. Both of the companies declined to reveal the actual amount of the investment.

    Liu, who showed up on Tuesday for the first time in public after her treatment for breast cancer, said the cooperation with CMB is for the long run and “the capital investment is only part of it”.

    Under the partnership, CMB and Didi will cooperate on a wide range of initiatives on financial services and online-to-offline cooperation. Apart from the in-app credit card payments, the two companies are going to launch joint credit cards in late February and automobile financing services for Didi's car owners. CMB's branches across China are expected to help Didi recruit more drivers.

    “There is a lot of room for imagination in our partnership,” Li said, adding in future people may use their CMB credit card reward points to pay for the ride on Didi.

    Li Chao, an analyst with iResearch Consulting Group, said the partnership may not significantly boost CMB's mobile payment business. “Didi has educated the market for three years and its customers have formed the habit of paying by WeChat or Alipay. So I think CMB can only turn a very smart proportion of Didi users into its payment customer,” he said. “But the move shows that China's traditional banking industry is finally thinking out of the box and looking for outside partners in Internet finance competition,” he said.

    Statistics from Big-Data Research showed that more than 90 percent of China's 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.41 trillion) worth of third party mobile payment market is donated by Alibaba and Tencent.

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    Augusto Esquivel is a sculptor who, in his own words, is “crazy with comparisons of reality and potential and the balance between them.” Perhaps the best example of what he's talking about are his most famous creations: the suspended(悬挂的) button sculptures.

    Made entirely from buttons hanging on various lengths of string, Esquivel's sculptures are made to look like common objects: a piano, a gumball machine, and even a toilet. If it wasn't for the clear string hanging above, these objects, these sculptures, would look solid, yet you can put your hands right through them. The process starts with him deciding on a subject and setting the acrylic （丙烯酸树脂）from where the buttons are being suspended. He buys buttons of different shapes and sizes, paints them with spray paint, and carefully hangs them. After that, it's a manner of hanging each individual button, which takes a lot of time. For his piano, for example, he individually hung over 60 pounds worth of tiny buttons.

    Esquivel's sculptures, while mostly housed inside art galleries, perfectly capture one of the main principles of street art: something that is eye-catching and something that invites interaction. Often the best sculptures outside the art galleries aren't the ones behind guards and fencing, but the ones people can go right up to and touch. In Vancouver, a series of laughing old men are attracting people for pictures and to just generally hang around, but the people who simply walk by and see the sculptures almost always leave with a smile on their face. That's good street art: it draws the viewer in rather than relying on a gallery to draw in an audience and point them to certain pieces.

    Esquivel's art is not only a presentation of talent, something that mentions larger philosophical questions, like the ones he stated above, but also just the right combination of interesting idea and painstaking work. One can look at his work in a critical way, or simply appreciate his idea and execution(艺术品的制作).

    We have two daughters: Kristen is seven years old and Kelly is four. Last Sunday evening, we invited some people home for dinner. I dressed them nicely for the party, and told them that their job was to join Mommy in answering the door when the bell rang. Mommy would introduce them to the guests, and then they would take the guests' coats upstairs and put them on the bed in the second bedroom.

    The guests arrived. I introduced my two daughters to each of them. The adults were nice and kind and said how lucky we were to have such good kids.

    Each of the guests made a particular fuss over Kelly, the younger one, admiring her dress, her hair and her smile. They said she was a remarkable girl to be carrying coats upstairs at her age.

    I thought to myself that we adults usually make a big "to do" over the younger one because she's the one who seems more easily to be hurt. We do it with the best of intentions.

    But we seldom think of how it might affect the other child. I was a little worried that Kristen would feel she was being outshone. I was about to serve dinner when I realized that she had been missing for twenty minutes. I ran upstairs and found her in the bedroom, crying.

    I said, "What are you doing, my dear?"

    She turned to me with a sad expression and said, "Mommy, why don't people like me the way they like my sister? Is it because I'm not pretty? Is that why they don't say nice things about me as much?"

    I tried to explain to her, kissing and hugging her to make her feel better.

    Now, whenever I visit a friend's home, I make it a point to speak to the elder child first.

    My husband David was waiting at the door when our daughter Laura and I came back. It wasn't like him to be home so early. The disbelief on his face told me that something was up.

    "Do you still have a job?"

    "No. Redundant," he answered, looking away from me.

    "OK. We'll figure it out," I replied calmly. I actually had no idea how we were going to figure it out. I immediately started to think of how we'd cut costs and who we should start to get in touch with. That night, after David had fallen asleep, I cried myself to sleep, and frequently sobbed（抽泣） in the shower in the days that followed.

    I knew the loss of David's income would have great effect on us. He had worked for the same company for twenty﹣one years and was our main income. I work at home caring for Laura, and my income is uncertain. We have debts, and job hunting takes time.

    Still, I was more concerned about my husband's emotional state than our financial situation. David's sense of identity was tied to his job. He called his parents to tell them about losing his job, but didn't say a word to anyone else for weeks. He told me that he felt like "a failure".

    It was tough for me to watch David struggle with unemployment. One night several weeks after he lost his job, David woke me just before midnight, sweating, pacing the bedroom floor and saying he didn't feel well. We spent the night in the emergency room waiting to see if he had a heart attack. Thankfully, it was just a serious anxiety attack. It was then that I knew I needed to do more to understand what my husband was going through. Here is what I learned from my own experience﹣and from talking to experts﹣on how to support your loved ones through a job loss.