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Virtual reality and the fix of the future
Virtual reality, with its complex sensory tricks, takes us beyond the real world. Find out how these potentially addictive experiences can harm us – or might even have therapeutic uses.
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Self-obsessing in the age of selfies
The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.
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Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs
The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.
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Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high
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
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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Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
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History of condoms from animal to rubber
Come on a journey from the first recorded condoms in the 16th century to the modern female condoms in the 1990s – and everything in between.
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Bubbles of history
Since the 1960s, scientists have been able to study the air from past centuries by analysing particles in Arctic ice samples. But as the polar ice melts, the future of this research is changing.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Chinese pillow history
What is the ideal pillow? In Chinese culture, the ideal shifted over time, and views on a good sleep also reveal attitudes about studying, love, food and drink.
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Crones
Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.
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Witches
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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Invisibility
Why do menopausal women feel invisible? Because nobody talks about menopause or because society doesn't value older women?
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Heating up and drying out
Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.
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Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
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Blood
Discover the history, mythology and taboos around blood and menopause, and hear from some contemporary voices about their experiences of periods and the onset of menopause.
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Navigating in a connected world
Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.
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The joys and failures of audio description
Audio description enhances the experience of watching a film or TV show for people with a visual impairment, but it's not widely available in the UK. Alex Lee explains why.
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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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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.
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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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Life before assistive technology
When an inherited condition caused Alex Lee’s vision to deteriorate, he began to discover the technologies that would help him navigate the world around him. Here he describes how his life began to change.
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Born in the NHS
Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.
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NHS Blue: the colour of universal healthcare
The 1980s and 1990s saw ideas from the world of business infiltrating the NHS, including the introduction of an internal market, followed by a corporate branding exercise.
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NHS strikes and the decade of discontent
When the social unrest of the 1970s spread to the NHS, dissatisfied staff challenged the status quo for the first time in quarter of a century.
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Medics, migration and the NHS
In the 1960s the NHS became Britain’s biggest employer. So to help fill all those jobs, the government brought in thousands of workers from abroad.