Articles

Our words and pictures explore the connections between science, medicine, life and art. Dive into one no matter where in the world you are.

1-20
  • Image gallery

Challenging stereotypes of people with learning disabilities

Explore the voices and photographs of people with and without learning disabilities who have worked with creative arts company Heart n Soul over the last 30 years.
Detail of metaphor by Rob Bidder
  • Comic

Metaphor

We think of our bodies using tank or factory metaphors, but we are all made of stars.

Part of Body Squabbles

  • Essay

The art of soundproof design

Too much noise is more than annoying – it has serious negative effects on health and cognitive ability. Find out how designers and architects are mitigating the downsides of sound.
Illustration by Ana Bustelo of woman lying down taking LSD
  • Essay

Acid and the sexual psychonauts

How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
  • Image gallery

Miracle cure-alls throughout the ages

From the elixir of life to radium, humans have always searched for a panacea: something to cure every ill. But instead it’s only highlighted our anxieties and preoccupations throughout history.

Part of From Our Collections

  • Comic

Tattoos

Tattoos to remember, tattoos to enhance, tattoos to disguise – which sort of tattoo is for you?

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph of writer Gwen Smith sat behind a table which is covered in vegetables, holding carrots in one hand and a green health drink in the other. She is looking sceptically at the vegetables.
  • Essay

The sickness in the wellness industry

In recovery from anorexia, Gwen Smith began to realise how the wellness industry needs its followers to feel bad about themselves in order to make money out them.
Illustration of doctor showering patients with sleeping pills
  • Essay

Why I don’t like prescribing sleeping pills

Sleeping pills often seem a simple option for aiding sleep or when dealing with anxiety, but there are many risks, and our anonymous GP is not afraid to say no to patients.

Part of The Secret GP

Photograph of an architectural detail inside the Paimio Sanatorium, designed and built by the architect Alvar Aalto.
  • Image gallery

Exploring Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium

Seemingly small features help to make Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium in Finland one healing element for the tuberculosis patients he designed it for.
Cover image from Tiffany Watt Smith’s ‘Schadenfreude’
  • Book extract

How to manage your Schadenfreude

Do you sometimes enjoy witnessing others’ distress? Tiffany Watt Smith suggests five ways to manage - and even embrace - the perplexing emotion of Schadenfreude.

Part of Inside Our Books

Print of old nose diagram
  • Book extract

My important, ridiculous nose

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.

Part of Inside Our Books

Photograph of a young woman sitting at a wooden table in a hermitage. On the other side the table is an empty chair carved from a tree trunk. behind her are three small arched windows which show the trees and mist outside.
  • Image gallery

The hermit life from medieval to modern

Can hermits get lonely? Explore solitary lives through the ages, from early religious ascetics to children imprisoned in churches, and on to those compelled to withdraw from modern life in the 21st century.

Part of The Loneliness Epidemic

Photograph of a young man sat in a deck chair on a sandy beach, looking out to sea. To his right is an empty deck chair.
  • Essay

Robinson Crusoe and the morality of solitude

Robinson Crusoe, fiction’s most famous castaway, was certainly isolated, but did he suffer the intrinsically modern affliction of loneliness?

Part of The Loneliness Epidemic

Photograph of a man sat in a living room armchair looking out of a window, his chin resting on his hand. To his right is an identical armchair which is empty,
  • Essay

Sick of being lonely

When his relationship ended, Thom James first withdrew from the world, then began to suffer from illnesses with no apparent physical cause.

Part of The Loneliness Epidemic

Photograph of a young woman sitting at a table laid for Christmas dinner for one. To the right hand side is a Christmas tree. Behind the woman is a bay window with net curtains covering the lower sashes.
  • Essay

Lonely bodies are hungry for more than turkey

At Christmas, many charities provide dinners for homeless or isolated people. Food is central to festive celebrations, but it can also satisfy our hunger for belonging and community.

Part of The Loneliness Epidemic

Photograph of a woman sat at a restaurant table looking at her phone. on the table is a glass of wine and a flower in a vase. Opposite her is an empty chair.
  • Essay

How online dating can make us lonely

The packed diary of an internet dater doesn’t necessarily denote fun, companionship and love. Find out what Christina Patterson learned on her internet-dating odyssey.

Part of The Loneliness Epidemic

Photograph of a VR headset on a colourful patterned background.
  • Serial
Part6

Virtual reality and the fix of the future

Virtual reality, with its complex sensory tricks, takes us beyond the real world. Find out how these potentially addictive experiences can harm us – or might even have therapeutic uses.

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of a view towards Canary Wharf with a section of a council high rise block of flats in the foreground.
  • Essay

How architecture builds a profession of stress

Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.
Mutation comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Mutation

Mutation is what makes us who we are. Be a proud mutant and keep mutating.

Part of Body Squabbles

Photograph of a smart phone held in a selfie-stick, in front of a colourful swirly background. The background pattern is repeated on the phone screen.
  • Serial
Part5

Self-obsessing in the age of selfies

The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.

Part of Intoxicating Histories