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12 results
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Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

| Stevyn Colgan

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

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Tripping for spiritualism and science

| Stevyn Colgan

Getting high in the name of religion or creativity has been practised for centuries. Now it seems hallucinogenics could help treat mental illnesses too.

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Witches

| Helen FosterEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveAsma Istwani

Many of the women persecuted as witches in the 16th-century “witch craze” were over 50 and exhibited signs of menopause. Helen Foster suggests that the stigma of the wicked witch still affects older women and how they deal with menopause.

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The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

| Natasha Ruiz-GómezKathleen Arundell

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

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Fake news and the flu

| Hannah MawdsleyThomas S G Farnetti

Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.

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A head apart from the body

| Rob Bidder

We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.

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Acid and the sexual psychonauts

| Alex DymockBen MechenLeah Moyle

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

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The cures and demons of sleep paralysis

| Sarah Jaffray

Discover the murky past of sleep paralysis, the terrifying disorder once associated with demonic possession

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Can isolation lead to manipulation?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.

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Illuminated manuscripts, illuminating medicines

| Cheryl Porter

From rare bugs to exorbitantly priced plant parts, find out more about the artistic and medical uses of pigments from the past.

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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.

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Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

| Lydia Ruffles

What’s it like to see heartbeats, taste Tube stations or hear paintings?