- Article
- 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.
- Article
- Article
How slums make people sick
A newly gentrified corner of Bermondsey leaves little clue to its less salubrious history. But a few intrepid writers recorded the details of existence in one of London’s most squalid slums.
- Article
- Article
Love, longing and tea from the polski sklep
For people of Polish origin in the UK, herbal tea is closely tied to health and shared history. Kasia Tomasiewicz explores her changing relationship to these tea-related cultural habits.
- Article
- Article
The healing power of the physic garden
Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.
- Article
- Article
The amateur silversmith
It started as hobby and soon became a passion. Geraldine Holden tells us where the art and science of silver unite.
- Article
- 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.
- Article
- Article
The Ladies of Llangollen
As we celebrate LGBT History Month, Sarah Bentley explores the relationship between the two 18th-century women known as the Ladies of Llangollen.
- Article
- Article
The Key to Memory: Follow your nose
Elissavet Ntoulia explores what a pair of pomanders can tell us about how and why we remember.
- Article
- Article
Living with less for spiritual gain
Today, a minimalist lifestyle is trumpeted as a route to happiness. Find out what religious ascetics from history and modern proponents of the spartan-looking home can teach us.
- Article
- Article
The tower in fiction, film and life
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.
- Interview
- Interview
Inside the mind of Ayurvedic Man’s curator, Bárbara Rodriguez Muñoz
The choices a curator makes – what goes in? what stays out? why? – are often as fascinating as the exhibition itself.
- Article
- Article
Coasting to catastrophe
In climate change, everything – and everyone – is connected. The watery process that will gradually cut off the Isle of Thanet from the British mainland has begun, and everyone in the UK needs to pay attention.
- Article
- Article
Building a dream in the garden suburbs
In the late 19th century a ‘garden suburb’ promised a retreat from London’s dirt and crowds. See how this new concept was developed to appeal to the health concerns of the literary classes.
- Article
- Article
Searching for a place to call home
Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.
- Article
- Article
The evil eye and social anxiety
The ‘look’ of the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. This ancient curse might be deliberate, inflicted with an envious glare, or it could be accidental, the result of undue attention or excessive praise.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.