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103 results
  • Article
  • Article

Bringing biotech to the people

| Anna LewisDebbie Loftus

Amateur scientists have inspired all kinds of frightening scenarios, from Frankenstein’s monster to ‘The Fly’ and ‘Breaking Bad’. But it can be a force for good. Today’s DIYbio enthusiasts are having fun – and even making lucrative breakthrough discoveries.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Sniffing glue and Scientology in the DrugScope archive

| Gwendolyn Smith

Academics on hallucinogenics, kids sniffing glue, and Scientologists recruiting drug users keen to kick the habit. Delve into Wellcome’s recently acquired DrugScope archive.

  • Article
  • Article

Journeying home

| Chris North

A serious health scare was the catalyst to Chris beginning the process of understanding his experiences more clearly, and using that new insight to help other intersex people.

  • Article
  • Article

Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

| Ross MacFarlane

Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.

  • Article
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Mask, ritual and fertility

| Chimwemwe PhiriSteven Pocock

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Another way to listen

| Adjoa WireduCamilla Greenwell

Background noise is something we often try to ignore. Adjoa Wiredu explores what happens if we intentionally choose to tune in.

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  • Article

The Key to Memory: Use art to articulate

Danny Rees explains what William Utermohlen’s self-portraits can tell us about how and why we remember.

  • Article
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Providing care across languages

| Niyoshi ShahRanganath Krishnamani

When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.

  • Article
  • Article

Sick of the theatre

| Michael Regnier

What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?

  • Article
  • Article

Equality in genetics

| Sasha HenriquesTinuke Fagborun

Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.

  • Article
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A history of gestation outside the body

| Claire Horn

It’s been over 400 years since a Swiss alchemist theorised that foetuses could develop outside the womb. Claire Horn examines incubator technology past and present, and explores the possibilities recent prototypes might bring.

  • Article
  • Article

Crones

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.

  • Article
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Menstruation, magic and moon myths

| Pragya AgarwalKaty Lemay

Why do stories cloaking periods in magic and mystery persist? Pragya Agarwal argues against myth-making and for inclusive menstrual education, grounded in fact.

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Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

| Alex Green

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

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Finding a cure for homesickness

| Gail TolleyMaria Rivans

While technology can mitigate some aspects of homesickness, other components of home are harder to replicate. Find out how 21st-century studies are helping homesickness sufferers find silver linings in their new situation.

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The secret lives of Britain’s first Black physicians

| Annabel SowemimoGergo Varga

Dr Annabel Sowemimo explores the web of connections between early Black British doctors, the role of empire in West Africa and the pernicious reach of scientific racism.

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  • Article

A history of mindfulness

| Matt Drage

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

  • Article
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John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Obesity and Britain’s boys

| Abbie Trayler-Smith

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Our complicated love affair with light

| Lauren ColleeSteven Pocock

Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.

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How do advertisers get inside our heads?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.

  • 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.

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The birth of the public museum

| Elissavet Ntoulia

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

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Cataloguing Audrey

| Elena Carter

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.

  • Article
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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.