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Can our minds be taken hostage?
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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Dynamo on the past, present and future of magic
The magician takes a tour and shares stories of history and inspiration.
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A wee spot of bother
Euphemisms can both appear to diminish experiences while at the same time making them easier to talk about. Carrie Hynds, who experienced the latter part of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”, explores the relationship between language and trauma.
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How to play with people who are better than you
It’s frustrating to lose a game to the same player every time. But help is at hand. Discover the ways you can make a game respond dynamically to participants so everyone has a chance of winning.
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Homesick for planet Earth
Find out how homesick astronauts spend their free time, and how recreating home cooking from freeze-dried ingredients can cheer them all up.
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Can isolation lead to manipulation?
Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.
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What is violence?
Criminologist Laura Bui explores her early understanding of violence and outlines its definition and wider consequences.
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Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology
How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.
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Journeying home
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.
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How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
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The significance of safe spaces as refuges from racism
Beer writer David Jesudason discusses the impact racism has had on his mental health, and the consolation offered by pubs that feel truly safe.
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Where does violence come from?
The popular understanding of certain ideas in psychology have become so embedded that it’s easy to blame the parents when a young person commits a crime. Laura Bui looks to the past for evidence.
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Can our sexual desires be transformed?
In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.
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Living in limbo when a loved one is missing
When someone goes missing, loved ones are thrown into a state akin to constant grieving; waiting for news, living in hope. Novelist Bev Thomas describes how they try to cope and carry on.
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Believe yourself better
There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.
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Providing care across languages
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.
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Self-obsessing in the age of selfies
The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.
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A history of mindfulness
Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.
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The 200-year search for normal people
Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.
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The unexpected parallels between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wellcome Collection
With the news of a sequel in development, Russell Dornan explores parallels between ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and Wellcome Collection.
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Spiritual joy
Spiritual joy can be a source of strength. Like the optimistic Pollyanna, there’s a lot to be said for finding reasons to rejoice, even in adversity.
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Born different
For Chris North, being born intersex in the 1940s meant his many childhood hospital visits, tests and operations were not explained or discussed. As he reveals, doctors encouraged strict secrecy.
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The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War
In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.
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Why the world needs collectors
Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.
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Wonder years
The confusion and secrecy surrounding his condition seriously affected Chris’s mental health, blighting his teenage years. But somehow he began to hope and plan for the future.