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102 results
  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the minds of A R Hopwood and Honor Beddard

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

The curators of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ reveal the stories behind the exhibits, and the intriguing truths the show confronts us with.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

| Claire HornSteven Pocock

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.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Inside the Cold War mind

| Martin SixsmithSteven Pocock

Martin Sixsmith explores the competing national psyches of Russia and America, and a world divided between their irreconcilable visions of human nature.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

The spectacle maker

| Clare DowdyCarmel King

Born into the eyewear business 80 years ago, Lawrence Jenkin still designs and makes glasses, while supporting and inspiring the generations of designers following him.

  • Article
  • Article

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Air of threat

| Chloe AridjisMichael Salu

Novelist Chloe Aridjis vividly describes the suffocating atmosphere of Mexico City, as a combination of topography, crowded neighbourhoods, and reckless political diktats create a downward spiral.

  • Article
  • Article

The smile catchers

| Esther Leslie

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

  • Article
  • Article

The seizure dog

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

Aparna Nair's dog Charlie made her feel safe in the world. His uncanny ability to sense when she was about to experience a seizure also gave her an unexpected ally in her struggles with epilepsy.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The castration effect

| Gavin FrancisBenjamin Gilbert

Discover how testosterone – or the lack of it – affects the male body, from eunuch slaves to castrato singers, and on to hormone reduction in modern prostate cancer treatment.

  • Article
  • Article

A history of mindfulness

| Matt Drage

Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.

  • Article
  • Article

The first seizure

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

Historian Aparna Nair had her first seizure when she was 11. Here she recalls that first time, and how other people’s reactions are sometimes the most disturbing part about having a seizure.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

You know the drill

| Richard Barnett

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

  • Article
  • Article

Reversing the psychiatric gaze

| Leah Sidi

Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.

  • Article
  • Article

The current that kills

| Ruth Garde

In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.

  • Article
  • Article

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The girl with no name

| Paul Craddock

When a now anonymous teenager sold her tooth for transplant, she couldn’t have predicted that she’d end up at the heart of a troubling story about 18th-century beauty ideals.

  • Article
  • Article

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

| Douglas SmallBenjamin Gilbert

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.

  • Article
  • Article

Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

  • Article
  • Article

Crime drama and the realistic cadaver

| Hildegunn M S TraaSteven Pocock

Today we are accustomed to the increasingly realistic look of dead bodies in on-screen dramas. Special-effects expert Hildegunn M S Traa reveals how crime and morgue scenes reflect the social idea of death.

  • Article
  • Article

The ‘epileptic’ in art and science

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

From scarred outsiders in literature to the cold voyeurism of medical films and photography, people who experience seizures and epilepsy are rarely shown in a compassionate light in popular culture.

  • Article
  • Article

The relationship between science and art

| Victoria Kingston

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

  • Article
  • Article

Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

| Aparna NairTracy Satchwill

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

’No you’re not’ – a portrait of autistic women

| Rosie Barnes

In this sensitive series of portraits and interviews, photographer Rosie Barnes acknowledges the voices and experiences of autistic women.

  • Article
  • Article

Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed

| Joanna WolfarthRosie Barnes

Most new mums are told that breast is best. But breastfeeding doesn’t always come as easily or naturally as you might imagine.

  • Article
  • Article

The Key to Memory: Mark it out

Sarah Bentley explores what a papier-mâché figure from Japan can tell us about how and why we remember.