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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.

Meet the climate emergency

Find out what led Yinka Shonibare to create the compelling artwork ‘Refugee Astronaut’.

Words of hope and anger

Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.

Leaving Mexico and finding refuge in hope

In Mexico, violence of all kinds – organised, street, domestic – is accepted as normal. From the UK, Laura Morales speaks out and fights to help those suffering back home.

Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Getting under the skin

Before the invention of X-ray in 1895 there was really only one way to accurately study the human body, and that was to cut it open.

The hell of hay fever

After years suffering in silence, David Jesudason finds speaking out about his pollen allergy gives him hope for a future where his hay-fever symptoms are under control.

A bad atmosphere in the Balkans

The citizens of Belgrade, one of the most polluted cities in Europe, are finally pushing back against the polluters, whose activities they’ve been encouraged to accept.

Hunting lost plants in botanical collections

A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.

Bringing Braille back to the modern world

For anyone who thinks Braille is so last century, read on. New tech is helping dust Braille down and bring it to today’s visually impaired people.

Living with less for spiritual gain

Today, a minimalist lifestyle is trumpeted as a route to happiness. Find out what religious ascetics from history and modern proponents of the spartan-looking home can teach us.

Writing in remission

Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.

Is it really OK to not be OK?

Our mental healthcare system is still the poor relation of services that treat physical illness, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on this situation. Campaigner James Downs argues for fundamental change.

Remote romance and the common cold

Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.

Happy Joy Smile

Drawn from real-life experiences, this short story depicts a character negotiating the UK’s current mental health system. Discover what happens as they encounter waiting lists, sketchy healthcare and punitive government bureaucracy.

When self-deception becomes global hoax

Being deceived isn’t always a case of believing someone else’s lie. Experiments have shown that many of us can be manipulated into accepting our own fictions as true.

London, city of lost hospitals

Come on the trail of hundreds of ghost hospitals, whose remnants hold clues to medical treatments of the past.

NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare

The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.

Abandoning daydreams of a life without diabetes

After years of longing for a cure for her type 1 diabetes, Daisy Watson Shaw, partly due to medical advances in managing the condition, has reached a state of acceptance. Her wishes now are for greater understanding.

The girl with no name

When a now anonymous teenager sold her tooth for transplant, she couldn’t have predicted that she’d end up at the heart of a troubling story about 18th-century beauty ideals.

Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

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.

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.

Crime drama and the realistic cadaver

Today we are accustomed to the increasingly realistic look of dead bodies in on-screen dramas. Special-effects expert Hildegunn M S Traa reveals how crime and morgue scenes reflect the social idea of death.

The island of unclaimed bodies

In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.