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The art of scientific glassblowing

Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.

Found items

Books leave their traces in our minds, but we leave traces of ourselves in books too, as these fascinating items found inside old works show.

The intimate and invasive art of ethical taxidermy

Does displaying dead animals bring us closer to nature, or drive us further apart?

Surviving the storm of postnatal depression

Emma Jane Unsworth lays bare the despair of postnatal depression and shares her route to recovery.

Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me

Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.

Trans masculinity on the record

Curator of the Museum of Transology in Brighton E-J Scott tells the story behind a few of the 250 objects from the collection, and the powerful effect they had on him as he put trans lives on the record.

Hands-on healthcare

A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.

Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner

Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.

How I escaped my anxiety and depression through architecture and poetry

Social anxiety led him to introversion and silence. The brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Estate inspired his liberation in poetry.

Audrey’s photographer

In this short film, photographer Thomas Farnetti demonstrates the techniques he developed to digitise and capture for posterity Audrey’s highly intricate scrapbooks.

Audrey’s conservator

In this short film, conservator Stefania Signorello explains how she approached the unique challenge of preserving Audrey’s scrapbooks as she created them.

Audrey’s archivist

In this short film, archivist Elena Carter talks about how she worked with Audrey’s scrapbooks to preserve her individual voice within her archive.

Giving shape to sound

Fascinated by language and how music feels, Deaf rapper Signkid creates tracks that give shape to sound. He discusses inspiration, access and performing for all audiences, D/deaf and hearing alike.

A medieval guide to practical magic

With few sources of effective help available when treating an injured patient, the medieval physician could instead stage a healing ceremony using a practical how-to guide he carried with him.

The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.

The Key to Memory: Write it down

Nick Dent explores what the Library of the Human Genome can tell us about how and why we remember.

A freezer full of breastmilk

When new mum Alev Scott began pumping her milk between feeds, she soon found she was freezing more breastmilk than her baby would ever need. So Alev began to investigate ways to share her oversupply.

Titans in the landscape

The Martians are coming

For over a hundred years, antagonistic alien invaders have been a popular focus for the imagined end of the world. But the destructive consequences of human behaviour is far more frightening.

The catharsis of cringe

Watching cringe comedy can be therapeutic. Find out why some of us are drawn to the build-up of stress in shows like ‘Frasier’ and ‘The Office’.

Printing the body

The 18th century saw multiple technical developments in both printing and medicine. Colourful collaborations ensued – to the benefit of growing ranks of medical students.

What our facial hair says about us

Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.

Dyslexia and its misconceptions

Overcoming common myths about dyslexia only adds to the challenges of growing up with the condition. Madeleine Morley, who was diagnosed with dyslexia aged eight, goes into myth-busting mode and shares her personal experiences.

Getting the measure of pain

In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.

This is a MOOD

Adults might sometimes dismiss teenagers’ ‘moodiness’, but adolescence is a time of complex shifts in brain and body, which are intricately bound up with fluctuating feelings.