- Article
- Article
In search of the ‘nature cure’
Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.
- Article
- Article
Devilry and doom in 1666
Disastrous events and a significant combination of numbers signalled the end – or perhaps a new beginning – in 1666. But for some, this feverish period fuelled unprecedented inventiveness and development.
- Article
- Article
Notes upon arrival
In an effort to feel at home back in the country of her birth, poet Bhanu Kapil recognises the small revelations of nature in a chilly UK spring as a way to reconnect.
- Article
- Article
The complex longing for home
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.
- Article
- Article
The art of soundproof design
Too much noise is more than annoying – it has serious negative effects on health and cognitive ability. Find out how designers and architects are mitigating the downsides of sound.
- Article
- Article
Milk trails round Euston
Where cows once grazed near Wellcome Collection in London, baristas now froth their milk. Esther Leslie uncovers Euston’s dairy-based urban history.
- Article
- Article
Navigating in a connected world
Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.
- Article
- Article
The housing that gives hope to refugees
A safe place of one’s own can be a source of healing and hope. George Kafka reports on two Athens-based projects helping displaced people by putting housing first.
- Article
- Article
The extraordinary body of Evatima Tardo
Darling of 19th-century American freak shows, Evatima Tardo remained serene as she withstood crucifixion and the bites of poisonous snakes. But she took the secret behind her abilities to her grave.
- Article
- Article
The tower in fiction, film and life
The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.
- Article
- Article
The ugly truth about fast fashion
Aja Barber reflects on her relationship with fast fashion, outlines its polluting and destructive effects, and shares the small, personal changes we can make that could help.
- Article
- Article
The family food of a kebab van man
Melek Erdal celebrates the physical and mental resilience of her father Yusuf, forged by isolation and dislocation, and reinforced by the distinctive cuisine of his home country, Turkey.
- Article
- Article
Dying to be in nature
The modern funeral business is one that uses up precious resources and pollutes the planet. But you can make sure it’s only your memory that leaves its mark with these new and natural ways to leave this earth.
- Article
- Article
Fleeing fear, defying prejudice
As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.
- Article
- Article
The child whose town rejected vaccines
Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.
- Article
- Article
The cook who became a pariah
New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The neuroscience of how we navigate
Christopher Kemp describes the mysterious case of Amanda Eller, a hiker who got lost in the woods. How can someone take a few steps off a well-marked trail and completely disappear?
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- Article
- Article
Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Guilty chimneys and the threat to the air we breathe
Industrialisation brought visibly polluted air to the world’s cities, captured in various media from the 1800s. Angela Saward explores the methods used, and the messages the images conveyed.
- Article
- Article
Dazzling luxury
As the 20th century dawned, both elite and masses basked in the marvellous and unearthly glow of the new electric illumination.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
How to rehabilitate the concrete jungle
A huge concrete housing estate from the 1960s, now seen as an ecological mistake, is being drastically redeveloped, compounding the environmental errors. Owen Hatherley posits a more creative solution.
- Article
- Article
Artificial intelligence and the dream of eternal life
Until now, eternal life was the stuff of fiction, or in the unknowable realms of religion. But an artificial intelligence that ‘remembers’ the whole of an individual’s experience could be the way to life after death.
- Article
- Article
Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination
The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.