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99 results
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Book design, dissected

| Gwendolyn Smith

Gwen Smith talks to art director Peter Dyer about imagery, colour, type and staying true to the pages within.

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Our endless quest for eternal youth

| Dr Lindsey FitzharrisKathleen Arundell

From poisonous 16th-century cosmetics to the latest “vampire facelift”, discover the fashions in unsavoury methods for improving our appearance.

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Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music?

| Christine Ro

Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.

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Native Americans through the 19th-century lens

| Allison C Meier

The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.

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Healing hard-working hands

| María Cristina JimenezLouise Hinman

The names we use to describe different hand injuries tell us about history, gender and class. Occupational therapist María Cristina Jiménez explores those injuries, and the changing ways we talk about them.

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Surviving fatness

| LMMNan Carreira

It took time for LMM to discover that being fat and poor are mutually exclusive. Here she describes resisting fatphobia by being visible and leaning in to the stereotype.

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How injury changed my brain

| Meg FozzardKathleen Arundell

Meg Fozzard, who experienced a brain injury in her 20s, writes about the huge impact it's had on her life, and talks to others with similar injuries.

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Thalidomide survivors in the 21st century

| Ruth BlueHollie Chastain

As thalidomide survivors enter their 60s, they look back on their lives and the legacy of the thalidomide catastrophe.

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When contemporary dance meets dyspraxia

| Emma WarrenCamilla Greenwell

Discover why a rare neurological condition meant an enthusiastic club-night dancer struggled with formal dance classes. And how persisting with those classes paid off.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

A portrait of me with my mother

| Camilla Greenwell

A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The psychology of Ouija

| Matthew L TompkinsBenjamin Gilbert

Explore the science behind table tilting and Ouija boards, and discover how the unscrupulous still make money from exploiting the ‘ideomotor’ effect.

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Healing through ink

| Josh WeeksLeticia Valverdes

Taking an approach learned from his OCD treatment, Josh Weeks faced his fear of getting tattoos, and embraced inking as part of the healing process.

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How can we prevent violence?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.

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Doris Day blows against

| Dodie BellamyMichael Salu

Dodie Bellamy remembers a heady summer watching Doris Day grimace and gust in vintage movies, her expressive exhalations changing her onscreen world with a puff.

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Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child

| Jude LaxJack Lax

As mother of an autistic child who questions her gender, Jude Lax describes cherishing her growing daughter as she explores her identity.

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Diagnosed bipolar, prescribed lithium

| Laura Grace SimpkinsAlice BoydMatjaž Krivic

In the first part of a series looking into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins recounts the beginning of her troubled relationship with this mysterious drug.

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Birth, babies and boxes of memories

| Erin BeestonNaomi Williams

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The give and take of caring

| Kate MosseSteven Pocock

Kate Mosse argues that how we define ‘care’ matters, and explores the reciprocity of caring and being cared for.

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Vaccinating a community, saving lives

| Hannah DinesRobin Hammond

Doctor Jane Harvey always goes the extra mile to care for her patients, and in recent months that’s extended to huge efforts to save lives with her coronavirus vaccination push.

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Why “crazy cat ladies” are healthier than you may think

| Erica CromptonCamilla Greenwell

Writer Erica Crompton ponders the reasons behind the misogynist “crazy cat lady” trope, and reclaims cat ownership as a positive way to help restore mental equilibrium.

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How shame makes us sick

| Lucia Osborne-CrowleyEduardo Rubio

The fight-or-flight response can have long-term consequences for our bodies if left unchecked. Lucia Osborne-Crowley investigates how shame and trauma are connected, and how both can lead to chronic ill health.

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The search for a cure for endometriosis

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

Discover how a white American doctor’s experimental operations on black female slaves laid the foundations for modern gynaecological surgery.

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Fashion for an unruly body

| Rosalind JanaCamilla Greenwell

One weekend, just before an operation to correct her scoliosis, Rosalind Jana stopped trying to hide her body. Read how those two days helped her step into the future.

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Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs

| Stevyn Colgan

The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

You know the drill

| Richard Barnett

Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.