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43 results
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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.

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Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me

| Laura Grace SimpkinsTanya Cooper

Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.

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Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India

| Lalita Kaplish

Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.

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Yoga gets physical

| Lalita Kaplish

Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.

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What is air, and how do we know?

| Hasok ChangTracy Satchwill

Watching bubbles in fermenting beer led 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to invent sparkling water – and to discover that different gases make up the air we breathe.

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My rainforest upbringing

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

In the introduction to her serial, research biologist Nataly Allasi Canales charts the influences that led her to passion for preserving the species of the Peruvian Amazon, where she spent her childhood.

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Coasting to catastrophe

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.

  • Long read
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Love, grief and assisted dying

| Michelle ElliotEszter Bonyi

In this deeply affecting story, Michelle Elliot explores the events and emotions around the time of her mother’s medically assisted death in Canada, where the practice is legal.

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Eugenics and the welfare state

| Indy BhullarGergo Varga

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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Intelligence testing, race and eugenics

| Nazlin BhimaniGergo Varga

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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Searching for a place to call home

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

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The conditional child

| Deanna Fei

Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.

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Having children as a fat woman

| Ellie LevensonBenjamin Gilbert

When she sought fertility advice, and at antenatal appointments, Ellie Levenson found that medics were openly anti-fat. Only years later can she evaluate the true repercussions of their words and actions.

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Lost in the mall and other false memories

| A R Hopwood

How can you remember an event that never took place? Find out how manipulation, misinformation and coercion can plant false memories in your mind.

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Can our minds be taken hostage?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?

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The colonist who faced the blue terror

| Anna Faherty

India, 1857. In a British enclave, Katherine Bartrum watches her friend, and then her family, succumb to the deadly cholera.

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The life and death of Tamagotchi and the virtual pet

| Jenna Jovi

Discover how the 1990s craze for Tamagotchis became a flood of robotic and virtual pets, sending their owners on an emotional rollercoaster ride.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard

| Florence WildbloodKathleen Arundell

Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.