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Journeying home
A serious health scare was the catalyst to Chris beginning the process of understanding his experiences more clearly, and using that new insight to help other intersex people.
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Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack
Cold War-era predictions of death on a vast scale became routine. But the British authorities were less prepared to dispose of the bodies.
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Keeping death close
Scattering her father’s ashes, Lauren Entwistle found herself longing for something physical that proved he once was a living, breathing person. Here she reflects on the objects that help us to grieve and remember.
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Dying to be in nature
The modern funeral business is one that uses up precious resources and pollutes the planet. But you can make sure it’s only your memory that leaves its mark with these new and natural ways to leave this earth.
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Does mass media pave the way to fascism?
In the aftermath of World War II, psychoanalysts found the psychological roots of authoritarianism closer to home than was comfortable.
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The case of the cancerous stomach
Steak and schnitzel were on the menu again after Theodor Billroth successfully excised a woman’s stomach cancer in 1881. Remarkably, today’s surgeons still perform the same procedure, with slight modifications.
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- Article
The seizure dog
Aparna Nair's dog Charlie made her feel safe in the world. His uncanny ability to sense when she was about to experience a seizure also gave her an unexpected ally in her struggles with epilepsy.
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Can our sexual desires be transformed?
In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.
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Wonder Woman’s wonder women
Discover more about the women who inspired an icon: Wonder Woman’s story of bondage, bracelets and birth control.
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Can our minds be taken hostage?
It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?
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A history of twins in science
For thousands of years, twins have been a source of fascination in mythology, religion and the arts. Since the 19th century, they have also been the subject of scientific study and experimentation.
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Performance art, frozen in time
For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.
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When you can’t return home
Migrants and refugees cannot choose to return home, so homesickness becomes a profound and long-lasting feeling. This powerful force infuses migrant cultures, and is rarely given the serious attention it warrants.
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Remote romance and the common cold
Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.
- Long read
- Long read
Our complicated love affair with light
Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.
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How music opens the doors of memory and the mind
People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?
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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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Sharing Nature: Parks for people
Paula Broom’s photograph of Sydney’s Centennial Park shows the complexity and joy we find in urban greenery.
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Hunting lost plants in botanical collections
A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.
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Care, creativity and a connected world
Find out about the challenges Wellcome Collection has faced during the last very demanding year.
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Do good mothers make good democracy?
To be psychologically fit for democracy, one distinguished paediatrician argued that you need a ‘good enough mother’ – and that we must acknowledge the bad side of our feelings.
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Finding solidarity in arachnophobia
Arachnophobia is very different from just disliking spiders. Izzie Price shares the reality of having the phobia, and explores its likely origins.
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Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability
By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.
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Lustmord and the three perspectives of murder
Artist Jenny Holzer's work shines a light on the three perspectives of sexual murder: the victim, the perpetrator and the observer.
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Living with invisible illness
What happens when the signs of your illness are invisible to the rest of the world? Hannah Turner describes the daily struggles of living with invisible illness.