Throughout the history of the arts, thenature of creativity has remained constant to artists．Nomatter what objects they select, artists are to bring forth new forces andforms that cause change—to find poetry where no one has ever seen orexperienced it before．

Landscape (风景) isanother unchanging element of art．It can be found from ancient timesthrough the17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists andimpressionists．Inthe 1970s Alfred Leslie, one of the new American realists, continued thispractice．Lesliesought out the same place where ThomasCole, a romanticist, had producedpaintings of the same scene a century and a half before．UnlikeCole who insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace innature, Leslie paints what he actually sees．In his paintings, there is no particularchange in emotion, and he includes ordinary things like the highway in thebackground．Healso takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography to helpboth the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom．

Besides, all art begs the age-oldquestion: What is real? Each generation of artists has shown theirunderstanding of reality in one form or another．The impressionists saw reality in briefemotional effects, the realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes, andthe Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic drawings of the animals in theancient forests．Tosum up, understanding reality is a necessary struggle for artists of allperiods．

Over thousands of years the function ofthe arts has remained relatively constant．Past or present, Eastern or Western, thearts are a basic part of our immediate experience．Many and different are the faces ofart,and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings．

    I log onto a computer at the doctor's office to say I have arrived and then wait until a voice calls me into the examination room.

    There, a robotic nurse directs me onto a device and then takes my blood pressure. Some time later, in steps the doctor, who is also a robot. He notes down my symptoms and gives me a prescription (处方). I pay for my visit using a credit card machine and return home without having met another human being.

    When I call my dentist's office and actually get a human being on the line, I am thrilled. And when I see the introduction of yet more self-service checkout stations at the grocery store, I feel like shouting, “When it comes to cashiers, make mine human, please!”

    After all, human cashiers sometimes give you a store coupon (优惠券) for items you are buying. Even more than that, real-life cashiers often take an interest in particularly cute children, which can brighten a young mother's day. A cashier may also show compassion (同情) for an elderly person struggling to get that last penny out of her purse.

    What technological device would do any of this? I don't want to go back to the Stone Age, but I'm also worried about a world run by machines. Sometimes when you're chatting with someone, you discover things you need to know. Maybe a receptionist needs prayers said for a sick child. Maybe a salesperson can offer a bit of encouragement to a customer who is feeling tired.

Machines can be efficient and cost-effective and they often get the job done just fine. But they lack an element so important to everyday life.

    Call it the spirit, the soul or the heart. It is something no machine will ever have. It is being human that prompts us to smile at others, which may be what they need at that moment.

                                                                           Exhibitions in the British Museum

    Hokusai: beyond the Great Wave

    Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is widely regarded as one of Japan's most famous and influential artists. He produced works of astonishing quality right up until his death at the age of 90. This new exhibition will lead you on an artistic journey through the last 30 years of Hokusai's life — a time when he produced some of his most memorable masterpieces.

    25 July — 13 August 2018

    Room 35

    Adults￡12, Members/under-16s free

    Places of the mind: British watercolour landscapes 1850-1950

    Drawn from the British Museum's rich collection, this is the first exhibition devoted to landscape drawings and watercolours by British artists in the Victorian and modern eras — two halves of very different centuries.

    23 July — 27 August 2018

    Room 90

    Free, just drop in

    Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia

    This major exhibition explores the story of the Scythians — nomadic tribes and masters of mounted warfare, who flourished between 900 and 200 BC. Their encounters with the Greeks, Assyrians and Persians were written into history but for centuries all trace of their culture was lost — buried beneath the ice.

    14 September 2018 — 14 November 2018

    Room 30

    Adults￡16.50, Members/under-16s free

    Politics and paradise: Indian popular prints from the Moscatelli Gift

    This display is part of the Museum's contribution to the India-UK Year of Culture 2017. It looks at the popular print culture of India from the 1880s until the 1950s.

    19 July — 3 September 2018

    Room 90a

    Free, just drop in.

    Many people believe that you lose the ability to learn new languages as you get older. Language experts, however, will tell you that you're never too old to learn a new language. As you get older, it can be more difficult to learn a new language, though.

    Children and adults learn new languages in different ways. For children, language is their life. They study for thousands of hours every year, because they need to learn languages to become part of their communities. Adults, on the other hand, are already part of a language community. Learning a new language means becoming part of another language community, and adults rarely get the chance to practice as much as young children do.

    Moreover, children learning a new language are expected to make mistakes. This gives them freedom when learning to be daring and confident. Adults, however, often feel stressed to be perfect when learning a new language. This can discourage many people and make it even harder to learn a new language.

    When young children learn a new language, they come to see various languages as a “normal” part of society. This mindset helps them to learn a new language without feeling like they're doing something unusual or “too hard”.

    So if you want to learn a new language, go for it! It's never too late to learn a new language. If you're older, it may take more work, but it can be done. If you're a young child, though, now is the time to step out and learn a new language!

    Will it matter if you don't take your breakfast? Recently a test was given in the United States. Those tested included people of different ages, from 12 to 83. During the experi­ment, these people were given all kinds of breakfasts, and sometimes they got no breakfast at all. Special tests were set up to see how well their bodies worked when they had eaten a certain kind of breakfast. The results show that if a person eats a proper breakfast, he or she will work with better effect than if he or she has no breakfast. This fact appears to be especially true if a person works with his brains. If a student eats fruit, eggs, bread and milk before going to school, he will learn more quickly and listen with more attention to class.

    Opposite to what many people believe, if you don't eat breakfast, you will not lose weight. This is because people become so hungry at noon that they eat too much for lunch, and end up gaining weight instead of losing. You will probably lose more weight if you reduce your other meals.

    New research brings some good news for lovers of spicy(辛辣的) foods, after finding that eating hot red chili peppers might help to extend lifespan（寿命）.

    Consuming hot red chili peppers might reduce death risk, say Chopan and Littenberg from the research team. In hot peppers, such as Mexico peppers, the strong flavor comes from a compound(复合物), which does not exist in sweet peppers or onions. Studies have suggested that this compound can offer a welth of health benefits.

    A study of more than 16,000 people in the United States revealed that individuals who consumed red chili peppers had a lower risk of death from all causes over an average of 18 years than those who did not eat the spicy food. Compared with participants who did not consume hot red chili peppers, those who did were found to be at 13 percent reduced risk of all-cause death.

    For example, a recent study reported by Medical News Today, found that the compound might have the potential to stop breast cancer, while an earlier study linked the compound to a reduced risk of digest system cancers. Still, the available data suggested that hot red chili pepper consumption was most strongly associated with a reduced risk of death from heart disease.

    While the researchers are unable to identify the concrete compound by which red chili peppers might extend lifepan, the team says that it is likely due to the compound that is effectively against obesity(肥胖症).

    Overall, the team says that these latest findings support those of the 2015 study, linking spicy food intake to reduced risk of death by showing “a significant decrease in death associated with hot red chili pepper consumption.” However, Chopan and Littenberg note that the earlier study was only conducted in Chinese adults, so the now research makes these findings more credible.