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71 results
  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Fairs, fires and the future of Smithfield

| Dr Tom Bolton

As meat trading in the area ends, Tom Bolton looks at the history of London’s Smithfield, which has been a place of healing and death, markets and mess for 900 years.

  • Article
  • Article

Thunderbolts and lightning

| Ruth Garde

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

  • Article
  • Article

A bad atmosphere in the Balkans

| Natasha TripneyDragan Mujan

The citizens of Belgrade, one of the most polluted cities in Europe, are finally pushing back against the polluters, whose activities they’ve been encouraged to accept.

  • Article
  • Article

Why zombies can’t help coming back

| Julianna Poole-SawyerKathleen Arundell

Although it might appear that zombies are a 20th-century phenomenon, created for the horror-movie industry, they’ve actually been around since medieval times. Find out what zombies like to do, and how to get rid of them.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Electric marvels in the age of enlightenment

| Amelia Soth

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

  • Article
  • Article

Intertwined with air

| Siwakorn OdochaoJennifer Katanyoutanant

Siwakorn Odochao details his people’s way of perceiving trees and humans as intimately connected, and draws on the air as the element that weaves between them. Through the co-dependency of humans and trees to prepare the air for each other, he elaborates on the relationship between air, health and environment.

  • Article
  • Article

Children in burns prevention campaigns

| Shane Ewen

Whose responsibility is it to prevent accidental burns and scalds in the home? Shane Ewen’s research shows that it’s everyone’s concern.

  • Article
  • Article

Confronting male stereotypes in the classroom

| Okechukwu NzeluRobin Hammond

Sometimes men just don’t like football. Writer and teacher Okechukwu Nzelu decides to be himself in front of his students.

  • Article
  • Article

A message from my skin

| Sydney BakerCat O’Neil

As wildfires threatened Seattle, resident Sydney Baker experienced corresponding flares of acne and rashes. Her skin was telling her something about the health of the world around her.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

| Gwendolyn Smith

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

  • 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

The tower in fiction, film and life

| Emily Sargent

The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.

  • Article
  • Article

The poetic language of health

| James MorlandPippa Dyrlaga

When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.

  • Article
  • Article

The ugly truth about fast fashion

| Aja BarberJiye Kim

Aja Barber reflects on her relationship with fast fashion, outlines its polluting and destructive effects, and shares the small, personal changes we can make that could help.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

“Above resistant pavements, I floated”

| Iain Sinclair

In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.

  • Article
  • Article

The stranger who started an epidemic

| Anna Faherty

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

  • Podcast
  • Podcast

The Garden

We explore ideas of belonging and colonial legacies, guerrilla gardening in response to a tragic event, and the link between an urban nature reserve and a GP’s surgery.

  • Article
  • Article

Why are women more willing donors than men?

| Hannah PartosThomas S G Farnetti

Why is there a gender imbalance when it comes to the donation of organs, blood and tissue, and what can be done about it?

  • Article
  • Article

A medieval guide to practical magic

| Rebecca J S NiceThomas S G FarnettiMartin Hopton

With few sources of effective help available when treating an injured patient, the medieval physician could instead stage a healing ceremony using a practical how-to guide he carried with him.

  • Article
  • Article

Dazzling luxury

| Ruth Garde

As the 20th century dawned, both elite and masses basked in the marvellous and unearthly glow of the new electric illumination.

  • Article
  • Article

Charged bodies

| Ruth Garde

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

  • Article
  • Article

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

| Katherine Harvey

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

  • Article
  • Article

A virtual view of history

| Marina GernerSteven Pocock

Step inside Anne Frank’s house or explore the galleries in a museum destroyed by fire. VR brings history and art satisfyingly close when we’re unable to get there in person.

  • Article
  • Article

Surviving a flesh-eating disease

| Scott NeillNan Carreira

Nearly dying from a skin infection gave Scott Neill a chance to start again after an early life marked by grief and depression.

  • Article
  • Article

Rebuilding my identity after a brain injury

| Chris MillerThomas S G Farnetti

Chris Miller talks about how a brain injury forced him to reassess his place in the world – physically, personally and socially.