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22 results
  • Article
  • Article

The metamorphosis of masturbation

| Dr Kate Lister

Throughout history, medics and campaigners have tried to stamp out masturbation – but is modern science transforming its reputation?

  • Article
  • Article

The law of periodicity for menstruation

| Lalita Kaplish

Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Winter blues and the story of SAD

| Linda Geddes

In ‘Chasing the Sun‘ Linda Geddes reveals why for some people, winter is literally depressing, showing how we first came to recognise seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

  • Article
  • Article

Political brilliance and the power of self-promotion

| Anna Faherty

How do you convince people you’re exceptional? Meet the ultimate self-styled genius.

  • Article
  • Article

Hunting lost plants in botanical collections

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

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.

  • Podcast
  • Podcast

Woodland

In this episode, JC delves into the contradictions in our relationship with woodlands, and explores different ways we can think about them, if we are to use and protect them more wisely.

  • Article
  • Article

Dying to be in nature

| Matthew PonsfordAndy Merritt

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

Unravelling genetic origins from the potato to cinchona

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

Starting with the humble potato, Nataly Allasi Canales reveals how researchers unearth the genetic origins of modern plant varieties, and explains why their work is so important for biodiversity.

  • Article
  • Article

Laughing at disaster

| Isabella KaminskiGuillaume Chiron

If joking around can help us cope when the worst happens, could comedy be a useful way to connect on climate change?

  • Article
  • Article

What is air, and how do we know?

| Hasok ChangTracy Satchwill

Watching bubbles in fermenting beer led 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to invent sparkling water – and to discover that different gases make up the air we breathe.

  • Article
  • Article

When the sun goes down

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

Despite the country’s colonial and industrial dominion, the finest minds of Victorian Britain began to fear the devastating effects of declining natural resources. Even the death of the sun.

  • Article
  • Article

“Life and the universe change our plans”

| Lil SullivanThomas S G Farnetti

Artist Lil Sullivan returns to the printmaking workshop for the first time after her stroke, and uses broken and discarded everyday objects to create art.

  • Article
  • Article

Medics and the bomb

| Taras Young

Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.

  • Article
  • Article

Seeds for the future

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

Indigenous groups have a key role as guardians of biodiversity, and their knowledge could help us all preserve our world. To survive, we all need to collaborate, reject prejudice, and share what we know.

  • Article
  • Article

Notes upon arrival

| Bhanu KapilMaïa Walcott

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

Searching for a place to call home

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

  • Article
  • Article

Soil health and dairy farming in the UK

| Angela HuiCat O’Neil

Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.

  • Article
  • Article

How to rehabilitate the concrete jungle

| Owen HatherleyJess Nash

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

People against pollution

| Alice BellAlberto Casias

Alice Bell reflects on what happens when communities help solve environmental problems, and whether citizen science can help fight industrial pollution today.

  • Article
  • Article

How the mental health system fails Black people

| Rianna WalcottCamilla Greenwell

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

Delusional recycling and the problem with plastic

| Arianne ShahvisiIfada Nisa

Many of us are guilty of wishful thinking when it comes to our rubbish. Arianne Shahvisi exposes shaky recycling infrastructure and overseas dumping, arguing for an end to waste colonialism.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

My important, ridiculous nose

| A L Kennedy

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