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An animated almanac for the modern world

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.

Mask, ritual and fertility

Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.

Making sense of senses lost

In rapid succession, Steve Barker suddenly lost sight and hearing on his left side. The effect on how he perceives the world has been profound.

Demanding a diagnosis for invisible pain

After dozens of hospital visits and handfuls of painkillers, a plethora of scans and tests bring diagnosis closer for Jaipreet Virdi.

Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing

James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.

The birth of the public museum

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

Conserving Audrey

Elena describes how specially designed storage allows Audrey’s scrapbooks to retain all traces of her creative process, although their intrinsic fragility means deterioration is almost inevitable.

How to play in a museum

Some museums create games for visitors to play. In others, if you’re creative and inquisitive, you can make up your own. Find out how a game can give you a different perspective on art and objects.

Why gene editing can never eliminate disability

In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.

Navigating in a connected world

Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.

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.

Walk, interrupted

By listing all the things that get in her way, Caroline Butterwick wants to create an embodied experience of disability and convince you that inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.

A woman in her wilderness of things

Even though her home was overwhelmed with stuff, Georgie Evans’s grandma couldn’t stop buying things. In this series, Georgie delves into hoarding, and attempts to make sense of her grandma’s behaviour.

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.

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses

Explore the perversely comforting appeal of a ghost in the house.

How to be poor and happy

Money, security, self-sufficiency and charitable giving have long been linked to happiness. But what if you’re working class?

On contagion

Reading descriptions of the way humans become infested by parasitic flatworms, Daisy Lafarge experienced painful physical symptoms. Perhaps the very creature she was studying had invaded her body.

Cracks that let the light in

Rai Waddingham lives with voices other people cannot hear. Here she describes how she has come to accept, understand and calm her voices, and to acknowledge her strength.

An insider’s view of Play Well

Curator Shamita Sharmacharja offers behind-the-scenes insights into an exhibition about the serious business of play.

Maria McKinney on ‘Sire’

All my grandparents were farmers; I grew up in the countryside surrounded by farms and helped neighbours herd sheep and cattle into the field. My body of work called ‘Sire’ looks at the genomics of modern cattle breeding.

Why make-believe matters

Michael Rosen explores the point of play, and reveals why we should all do a little more daydreaming.

The case of the cancerous stomach

Steak and schnitzel were on the menu again after Theodor Billroth successfully excised a woman’s stomach cancer in 1881. Remarkably, today’s surgeons still perform the same procedure, with slight modifications.

The extraction of the excruciating bladder stones

Among those vying to find alternatives to major surgery for bladder stones, young doctor Jean Civiale stood out, painstakingly honing a method that was to become the norm.