Born in the Netherlands in 1853, Van Gogh led a simple life in a small town until the age of 16. He then left school and joined a firm of art dealers in the large city of The Hague. He eventually realised that dealing with others’ artwork was not his profession. His true love was to become an artist himself.

He devoted much of his time to learning the fundamentals of drawing. Van Gogh believed that to become a great painter, one must first master the ability to draw. It was only after he was comfortable in this area that he began to use oil paints. That is when he developed a style and talent for colour that made him one of the most respected artists of all time.

Van Gogh’s paintings are amazing representations of his view of the world. The colours jump off the canvas (画布), not only because of their brightness but also because of the brush strokes (笔触). Van Gogh avoided light, feathery strokes, which would portray (描写) typical subjects. Instead, he used his brush and oils to make layers that built the painting until it was almost three-dimensional.

Perhaps one of the most memorable examples of Van Gogh’s use of colour and brush style is his painting The Starry Night. The sky swirls (打旋) across the canvas, while the stars shine with unearthly brightness. Each brushstroke creates the image of movement. The Starry Night shows Van Gogh’s great ability to create a powerful image with simple subjects.

Van Gogh spent only the last ten years of his life painting. He is believed to have sold only one of the 900 paintings he created during those years. Yet today Van Gogh is considered one of the greatest artists of all time. His influence is evident; many painters mimic his style and use of colour. His artwork can be found in museums all over the world and is valued in millions of dollars, an evidence for Vincent Van Gogh’s talent.

We truly are what we eat-and what our ancestors ate. Food has changed who we are and how we developed for hundreds of thousands of years. From processing to preserving to cooking, what humans did and continue to do to food played a big role in shaping our evolution.

Processed food isn’t just a modern invention, created in factories from artificial ingredients. It is as old as humanity itself and may have helped create our species. Processing doesn’t necessarily mean adding chemicals-it also includes hitting or slicing(切片) or changing the food in any way before eating. Compared to our ancestors, modern human teeth, jaws and faces have gotten smaller relative to overall skull size because of making food easier to chew, especially from cooking. Processing food also led to a huge gain in leisure time. The less time people spent chewing, the more time they had to develop complex oral language.

Cooking food was one of the biggest changes in human history. Researchers believe it could have occurred between 1.8 million and 400,000 years ago, Harvard professor Richard Wrangham said, according to National Geographic. Cooking increases the energy and nutrients we get from food. Without cooking, according to the BBC, an average person would have to eat around 5 kilos of raw food to survive and we’d have to spend most of the day chewing.

Cooking food also breaks down its cells, so our stomachs need to work less to absorb the nutrients our bodies require. “This,” said Professor Peter Wheeler from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, “freed up energy which could then be used to power a larger brain. The increase in brain-size mirrors the reduction in the size of the gut(肠道).”

Processed food literally shaped us as a species and made us human-the only species on Earth who can cook.

The possibility of self-driving robot cars has often seemed like a futurist’s dream, years away from coming into reality in the real world. Well, the future is apparently now. The California Department of Motor Vehicles began giving permits in April for companies to test truly self-driving cars on public roads. The state also cleared the way for companies to sell or rent out self-driving cars, and for companies to operate driverless taxi services. California, it should be noted, isn't leading the way here. Companies have been testing their cars in cities across the country. It's hard to predict when driverless cars will be everywhere on our roads. But however long it takes, the technology may change our transportation systems and our cities, for better or for worse, depending on how the transformation is managed.

While much of the debate so far has been focused on the safety of driverless cars, policymakers should be talking more about how self-driving cars can help reduce traffic jams, cut emissions (排放) and offer more convenient and affordable choices to move around. The arrival of driverless cars is a chance to make sure that those cars are environmentally friendly and more shared.

Do we want to copy or even worsen the traffic of today with driverless cars? Imagine a future where most adults own their self-driving cars. They accept long, slow journeys to and from work on crowded highways because they can work, entertain themselves or sleep on the ride. They take their driverless car to a date and set the empty car to circle the building to avoid paying for parking. Instead of walking a few blocks to pick up a child or the dry cleaning, they send the self-driving minibus. The convenience even leads fewer people to take public transport — an unwelcome side effect researchers have already found in ride-hailing (网约车) services. Policymakers should start thinking now about how to make sure the appearance of driverless cars doesn't worsen the transportation system we have today. The coming technological development presents a chance for cities and states to develop transportation systems designed to move more people, and more affordably. The car of the future is coming. We just have to plan for it.