Stories search

Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

Titans in the landscape

Charged bodies

Electrified humans brought education and performance together with a spark in the 18th century.

Eels and feels

For Georgian Londoners, the allure of electric animals was both intellectual and sensual.

Electric marvels in the age of enlightenment

How our understanding of electricity has grown, from novelty to the pulse of modern life – and the inner fire that powers the human machine.

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

The sweet sound of synthetic speech

After Alex experienced a serious deterioration in his sight, he came to rely on artificial voices to help him with everyday tasks. Find out how synthetic speech came to be developed.

You know the drill

Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.

The smile catchers

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

Sharing breastmilk with parents

Alev Scott donated her frozen breastmilk to a hospital milk bank, but she was curious about other routes. Here she explores commercial operations and informal private arrangements.

Lying low for lockdown and beyond

For Liz Carr the chances of catching Covid-19 are the same as for anyone else, but as a Disabled person she's at much greater risk of not getting the treatment she needs if she falls ill.

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.

Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis

Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.

Bringing Braille back to the modern world

For anyone who thinks Braille is so last century, read on. New tech is helping dust Braille down and bring it to today’s visually impaired people.

How do advertisers get inside our heads?

Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.

When wounds replace words

For the many thousands of refugees waiting in Greece, the process to establish the truth of their tragic personal histories is often extremely upsetting. But a group of medics and legal workers is working together to make the system more humane.