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31 results
  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The science of why things spread

| Adam KucharskiCamilla Greenwell

From deadly pandemics to viral tweets, Adam Kucharski explores what makes something contagious.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

How DNA’s spirals help us understand the shape of life

| Charlotte Sleigh

Twisting across our screens, the double helix of DNA is an icon of our age. And visualising microscopic structures is integral to our understanding of science, as Charlotte Sleigh reveals.

  • Article
  • Article

Devilry and doom in 1666

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

Disastrous events and a significant combination of numbers signalled the end – or perhaps a new beginning – in 1666. But for some, this feverish period fuelled unprecedented inventiveness and development.

  • Article
  • Article

Lost in the mall and other false memories

| A R Hopwood

How can you remember an event that never took place? Find out how manipulation, misinformation and coercion can plant false memories in your mind.

  • Article
  • Article

Can our sexual desires be transformed?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.

  • 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

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

The art of scientific glassblowing

| Helen BabbsThomas S G Farnetti

Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.

  • Article
  • Article

Aphasia and drawing elephants

| Thomas Parkinson

When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Healthy scepticism

| Caitjan GaintyAgnes Arnold-ForsterPaul AddaeFranklyn Rodgers

Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.

  • Article
  • Article

Would you like to buy a dinosaur?

| Ross MacFarlane

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Cocaine, the Victorian wonder drug

| Douglas SmallBenjamin Gilbert

Today, cocaine has a very poor public image as one of the causes of crime and violence. But for the Victorians it was welcomed as the saviour of modern surgery.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The shape of thought

| Richard WingateSteven Pocock

Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s description of the moment in 1887 when he saw a brain cell for the first time never fails to move neuroscientist Richard Wingate to tears. Here he captures that enduring sense of wonder.

  • Article
  • Article

Acid and the sexual psychonauts

| Alex DymockBen MechenLeah Moyle

How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.

  • Article
  • Article

Bringing biotech to the people

| Anna LewisDebbie Loftus

Amateur scientists have inspired all kinds of frightening scenarios, from Frankenstein’s monster to ‘The Fly’ and ‘Breaking Bad’. But it can be a force for good. Today’s DIYbio enthusiasts are having fun – and even making lucrative breakthrough discoveries.

  • Article
  • Article

Do you see what I see?

| Kirsten Riley

Is reality actually what you see, or just an elaborate illusion?

  • Article
  • Article

Illness and the influence of the stars

| Taras YoungSteven Pocock

Could alien germs from space have caused major pandemics across the world? Taras Young investigates the ideas of a few unconventional scientists who believe this to be the case.

  • Article
  • Article

My rainforest upbringing

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

In the introduction to her serial, research biologist Nataly Allasi Canales charts the influences that led her to passion for preserving the species of the Peruvian Amazon, where she spent her childhood.

  • Article
  • Article

How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction

| James Wilkes

Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.

  • Article
  • Article

The case of the cancerous stomach

| Thomas MorrisEmily Evans

Steak and schnitzel were on the menu again after Theodor Billroth successfully excised a woman’s stomach cancer in 1881. Remarkably, today’s surgeons still perform the same procedure, with slight modifications.

  • 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.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Meet the climate emergency

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

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

  • Article
  • Article

Believe yourself better

| A R Hopwood

There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.

  • Article
  • Article

Ancestry, privacy and the family tree

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wanting to find out more about her Jamaican grandfather, Tanya Perdikou contemplates DNA testing. But first she has to consider the potential impact of unexpected results.

  • Article
  • Article

John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.