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117 results
  • Article
  • Article

Vivekananda’s journey

| Lalita Kaplish

How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.

  • Article
  • Article

The poor child’s nurse

| Briony Hudson

Charming family scenes in Victorian ads for children’s medicines were at odds with some of the dangerous ingredients they contained.

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  • Article

Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean

| Riaz PhillipsAnna Keville Joyce

Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.

  • Article
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Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner

| Shelley Angelie SaggarThomas S G Farnetti

Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.

  • Article
  • Article

Yoga gets physical

| Lalita Kaplish

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

  • Article
  • Article

How your hairdresser could save your life

| Kristin HohenadelThomas S G Farnetti

Barbers and hairdressers have a unique view of us – one that means they can spot potentially dangerous health problems. Find out how buzzcuts can lead to blood-pressure checks, and dip-dyes show the way to the dermatologist.

  • Article
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The stranger who started an epidemic

| Anna Faherty

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

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Heating up and drying out

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

| Guy StaggJess Nash

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

You know the drill

| Richard Barnett

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

  • Article
  • Article

Would you like to buy a unicorn?

| Cassidy Phillips

The story behind why somebody tried to sell Henry Wellcome a unicorn head in 1928.

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  • 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.

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  • Article

Healing hard-working hands

| María Cristina JimenezLouise Hinman

The names we use to describe different hand injuries tell us about history, gender and class. Occupational therapist María Cristina Jiménez explores those injuries, and the changing ways we talk about them.

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  • Article

Why gene editing can never eliminate disability

| Jaipreet Virdi

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

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The complex longing for home

| Gail TolleyMaria Rivans

It could be mild, an almost poetic longing. Or it could be visceral, deep, an overwhelming feeling that eats into your everyday life. Come with Gail Tolley as she introduces a deep dive into homesickness.

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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.

  • 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.

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  • Article

Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

| Stevyn Colgan

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

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  • Article

Exceptional talent and the trouble with IQ tests

| Anna Faherty

Is a high IQ really a mark of genius, or does something else explain the exceptional?

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The blood notebooks

| Rupert Thomson

Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.

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Chemical highs and psychedelic research

| Kate WilkinsonLaurindo Feliciano

Could recreational drugs make you happy? Kate Wilkinson explores why keen clubber Simon believes taking psychedelics has helped him develop as a person.

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Thunderbolts and lightning

| Ruth Garde

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

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How light pollution affects our circadian rhythms

| Christine Ro

Too much of the wrong sort of light can send our natural cycles off-kilter – is city life messing with your circadian rhythm?

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  • Article

Is your job bad for your teeth?

| Kristin Hohenadel

Some surprising occupations pose hidden risks to dental health. Could your ivories be in particular peril?

  • Article
  • Article

Born in the NHS

| Cal Flyn

Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.