- In pictures
- In pictures
Born to play
Our understanding of the importance of play in a child’s development has become increasingly sophisticated over the centuries. Explore the ways different eras have regarded childhood games.
- Article
- Article
This is what changed my approach to interior design
An interior designer examines how emotions and cognitive activity influenced her designs, and argues that spaces reflect the people within.
- Article
- Article
Self-obsessing in the age of selfies
The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.
- Article
- Article
Do you see what I see?
Is reality actually what you see, or just an elaborate illusion?
- Article
- Article
Dress and the magic of touch
Fashion, of course, is largely about appearance, but the feeling of clothes on your skin is a complex sensory experience. Shahidha Bari contemplates the human connections in the business of creating and wearing clothes.
- Article
- Article
This is a MOOD
Adults might sometimes dismiss teenagers’ ‘moodiness’, but adolescence is a time of complex shifts in brain and body, which are intricately bound up with fluctuating feelings.
- Article
- Article
Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses
Explore the perversely comforting appeal of a ghost in the house.
- Article
- Article
Sick of being lonely
When his relationship ended, Thom James first withdrew from the world, then began to suffer from illnesses with no apparent physical cause.
- Article
- Article
How I escaped my anxiety and depression through architecture and poetry
Social anxiety led him to introversion and silence. The brutalist architecture of London’s Barbican Estate inspired his liberation in poetry.
- 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
Dancing for joy
Dancing is a mood enhancer, it increases social bonding and it improves creativity. Maybe you really can dance all your troubles away.
- Article
- Article
The catharsis of cringe
Watching cringe comedy can be therapeutic. Find out why some of us are drawn to the build-up of stress in shows like ‘Frasier’ and ‘The Office’.
- Article
- Article
Cracks that let the light in
Rai Waddingham lives with voices other people cannot hear. Here she describes how she has come to accept, understand and calm her voices, and to acknowledge her strength.
- Interview
- Interview
Inside the minds of A R Hopwood and Honor Beddard
The curators of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ reveal the stories behind the exhibits, and the intriguing truths the show confronts us with.
- Article
- Article
Why all of us are evil
Science proves that we’re all capable of evil: your secret fantasy about killing someone you hate is surprisingly normal. But the way to better moral choices is to fight emotional instinct.
- Article
- Article
Living with early onset Parkinson’s
Ten years ago, three little words changed Pete Langman’s world.
- Article
- Article
How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
- Article
- Article
What the nose doesn’t know
Losing her sense of smell for over a year motivated Stephanie Howard-Smith to sniff out the history of treatments for this unsettling condition.
- Article
- Article
Intelligence testing, race and eugenics
Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.
- Article
- Article
Happiness in time
Trying to define happiness is like trying to grasp water: it evades us, constantly changing and becoming evident only in retrospect.
- Article
- Article
Building resilience in a racist world
With the resurgence of racism in today’s UK, Louisa Adjoa Parker reflects on the trauma of growing up in a racist society and explores how victims could begin to heal.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
How to talk to kids about race
When her daughter decided blonde was best, a red flag went up for Pragya Agarwal. In this essay, the behavioural scientist discusses childhood development, race and representation.
- Article
- Article
Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology
How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.
- 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.