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Rose Mackenberg’s deceptive activism

Discover how a New York private investigator became part of Houdini’s mission to expose the fraudulent mediums making money from their vulnerable, grieving clients.

A history of mindfulness

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

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

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

Finding a cure for homesickness

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.

My important, ridiculous nose

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.

The chymist’s trade card

An 18th-century trade card reveals far more than its owner may have intended.

What the wind can bring

In this extract from ‘This Book is a Plant’, Amanda Thomson shares a newfound fascination with flowers, and reveals why our relationship with plants can also be complicated.

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.

How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Love, grief and assisted dying

In this deeply affecting story, Michelle Elliot explores the events and emotions around the time of her mother’s medically assisted death in Canada, where the practice is legal.

Eugenics and the welfare state

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.