- In pictures
- In pictures
Tesla, quacks and violet rays
Imagine a device that can treat everything from baldness to gout. Too good to be true? Yes, and it was banned – but not before hundreds were hoodwinked.
- Article
- Article
Hyperfocus and hobbies
Alex Chan talks about the power of ADHD-associated hyperfocus and how they’ve become wary of feeding it too often.
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- Article
People against pollution
Alice Bell reflects on what happens when communities help solve environmental problems, and whether citizen science can help fight industrial pollution today.
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- Article
The unimprovable white cane
Recent technological additions to the white cane aim to make the world easier for visually impaired people to navigate. Alex Lee explores whether new is really better.
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- Article
Bringing biotech to the people
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.
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- Article
Healing hard-working hands
The names we use to describe different hand injuries tell us about history, gender and class. Occupational therapist María Cristina Jiménez explores those injuries, and the changing ways we talk about them.
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- Article
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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- Article
When the sun goes down
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.
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- Article
A brief history of ventilation
As ventilators continue to play an important part in helping very ill coronavirus patients, medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris traces their development from the first attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation through centuries of medical crises.
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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’.
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- 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.
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- Article
The cook who became a pariah
New York, 1907. Mary Mallon spreads infection, unaware that her name will one day become synonymous with typhoid.
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- Article
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.
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- Article
The art of scientific glassblowing
Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.
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How architecture builds a profession of stress
Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.
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Titans in the landscape
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How the Peckham Experiment inspired my fiction
Find out how an unruly mass of archive material from a 1930s radical health centre has inspired brand new writing.
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- Article
The ‘undesirable epileptic’
Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.
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- Article
Why the world needs collectors
Those who collect play an important role as “facilitators of curiosity”, says Anna Faherty.
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Foraging for a taste of the past
Follow tips from a professional forager to recreate delicious 18th-century recipes from plants growing wild in parks and on urban wasteland.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Naked, not nude
Classicist Caroline Vout argues that it’s time to take the dust covers off the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and to encounter their bodies not nude, but naked.
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- Article
Conflicted and confused about lithium
Covid-19 left Laura Grace Simpkins out of work and living back with her parents. She now had time to restart her research into her medication, but was she mad to continue?
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- Article
Talent, tech and visual art
Jamie Hale finds a combination of talent and technology are crucial when it comes to creating great visual art, but how do you keep working when your circumstances are in constant flux?
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- Article
How shame makes us sick
The fight-or-flight response can have long-term consequences for our bodies if left unchecked. Lucia Osborne-Crowley investigates how shame and trauma are connected, and how both can lead to chronic ill health.
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- Article
Living in limbo when a loved one is missing
When someone goes missing, loved ones are thrown into a state akin to constant grieving; waiting for news, living in hope. Novelist Bev Thomas describes how they try to cope and carry on.