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Medics and the bomb
Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.
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Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Dangers inside and out
Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.
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Migraine, creativity and me
Novelist Lydia Ruffles explores how migraine has made her mind stretch, shrink, widen and change, and how it’s influenced her art.
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Delusional recycling and the problem with plastic
Many of us are guilty of wishful thinking when it comes to our rubbish. Arianne Shahvisi exposes shaky recycling infrastructure and overseas dumping, arguing for an end to waste colonialism.
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Medics, migration and the NHS
In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.
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Fees, funding and the NHS
In the 1950s, dramatic political battles over NHS charges brought down a government. But public confidence in the service still grew.
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Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.
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Fake news and the flu
Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.
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Heating up and drying out
Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.
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Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
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Sex work and critical campaigners
When campaigners filmed secretly in the club where she worked, exotic dancer Ella Smith felt frightened and degraded. Here she speaks out about the attack on her livelihood.
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- Article
Ancestry, privacy and the family tree
Wanting to find out more about her Jamaican grandfather, Tanya Perdikou contemplates DNA testing. But first she has to consider the potential impact of unexpected results.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs
In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.
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Pain and the power of activism
Today, women with endometriosis have more access to better information than ever before. Jaipreet Virdi applauds the shared stories, online communities and self-help books empowering women in pain.
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Yoga adapts to time and place
A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.
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People against pollution
Alice Bell reflects on what happens when communities help solve environmental problems, and whether citizen science can help fight industrial pollution today.
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Remote romance and the common cold
Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.
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Laughing at disaster
If joking around can help us cope when the worst happens, could comedy be a useful way to connect on climate change?
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The tower in fiction, film and life
The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.
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NHS strikes and the decade of discontent
When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a century.
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Cowpox, Covid-19 and Jenner’s vaccination legacy
The well-known story of vaccination pioneer Edward Jenner has at its heart his drive to make vaccines free of charge and available to all. Now his principles extend to the global campaign for a people’s patent-free vaccine for Covid-19.
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Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination
The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.
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How trauma affects the body and mind
The long and devastating aftermath of an attack have given writer and broadcaster Bidisha unique insight into the suffering of other victims. Here she explores survival and healing in those who have experienced trauma.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Winter blues and the story of SAD
In ‘Chasing the Sun‘ Linda Geddes reveals why for some people, winter is literally depressing, showing how we first came to recognise seasonal affective disorder (SAD).