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Sharing Nature: Plastic fantastic
There are serious concerns about plastics in the environment. Yet they make our lives much easier, even in the natural world.
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Why some patients make my heart sink
Instead of getting nowhere with certain demanding, manipulative patients, our anonymous GP wonders if there’s a way to help them.
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Rebuilding my identity after a brain injury
Chris Miller talks about how a brain injury forced him to reassess his place in the world – physically, personally and socially.
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Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph
In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.
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What writing myself has revealed
Caroline Butterwick talks to two creators about how lived experience feeds their art, and reflects on her own year of writing about her life.
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The fine line between collecting and hoarding
Being ‘a collector’ is often celebrated but being labelled ‘a hoarder’ can be humiliating, at best. Georgie Evans asks what makes one set of objects a collection and another a hoard.
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Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me
Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.
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The ancient doctors who refused payment
The NHS might only be 70 years old, but the idea of free healthcare goes back to Ancient Greece, when devout doctors provided their services without charge.
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Thousands of years of women’s pain
Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.
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Do you see what I see?
Is reality actually what you see, or just an elaborate illusion?
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Plant portraits
The beautiful and mysterious illustrations in medieval herbals convey a wealth of knowledge about the plants they portray.
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The freedom to provoke
Jamie Hale talks to performer and director Emma Selwyn about the joy of creating work that celebrates, rather than suppresses, autistic behaviours.
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A journey through slime
Did you know that slime cells signal to each other and seek out multiple partners? Welcome to bath time with Abi Palmer – and some revolting yet awe-inspiring grey slime.
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Are you still nursing?
Julia Martins might get the side-eye for breastfeeding a three-year-old in the UK but, as she explains, examples from history, as well as the cultural norms of Brazil, where she grew up, are firmly on the side of extended nursing.
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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 can we prevent violence?
Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.
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Making sunstroke insanity
Medical historian Dr Kristin Hussey takes a closer look at sunstroke and mental illness, and how, in the late 19th century, they connected at the crossroads of colonial science and the idea of whiteness.
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How tuberculosis became a test case for eugenic theory
A 19th-century collaboration that failed to prove how facial features could indicate the diseases people were most likely to suffer from became a significant stepping stone in the new ‘science’ of eugenics.
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The trouble with too many things
Hoarding is a slippery subject – difficult to define or diagnose. As she tries to explain the intensity of her grandma’s collecting, Georgie Evans finds the words and tools at her disposal aren’t all that helpful.
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How homesickness inspires art
Gail Tolley looks at homesickness through the eyes of three contemporary artists and finds powerful new themes of identity and connection.
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Bloody capitalism and the cash flow of the menstrual cycle
Once they thrived on taboos and shame. Now period-product manufacturers are finding new ways to flourish in this era of period activism – but products aren’t the end of the story.
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Rejecting shame and a decade of change
Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.
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How the magician’s assistant creates the illusion
Without breaking the spell, performer Naomi Paxton reveals the subtle ways the magician’s assistant helps the audience to keep believing.
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Maria McKinney on ‘Sire’
All my grandparents were farmers; I grew up in the countryside surrounded by farms and helped neighbours herd sheep and cattle into the field. My body of work called ‘Sire’ looks at the genomics of modern cattle breeding.
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A wheelchair in the world
Five years ago, Jan Grue, author of ‘I Live a Life Like Yours’, became a father. A wheelchair user since age eight, Grue explores how parenthood helped him reimagine his relationship with his wheelchair.