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How can we prevent violence?
Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.
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Are people born violent?
Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.
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The conditional child
Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.
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Tracing the toxic story of tear gas
Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.
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The island of unclaimed bodies
In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.
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Lost in the mall and other false memories
How can you remember an event that never took place? Find out how manipulation, misinformation and coercion can plant false memories in your mind.
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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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What is structural violence?
Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.
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Death and our digital ghosts
When we die, our data lives on. And as companies are increasingly spotting money-making opportunities from digital legacies, now could be the time to think about – and control – yours.
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Vivekananda’s journey
How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.
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Providing care across languages
When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.
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Why even plastic surgery can’t hide you from facial recognition
Once upon a time, plastic surgery allowed a few notorious criminals to evade the law. But today, sophisticated facial-recognition technology has turned dreams of anonymity to dust.
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The men who meddled with nature
The ‘acclimatisation societies’ of the 19th century sought to ‘improve’ on the natural world by releasing non-native species into the wild. The effects were disastrous.
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Breaking the rules of online dating
Artists are taking on the trolls of Tinder and the gremlins of Grindr to question the limits of online dating.
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Thunderbolts and lightning
Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.
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The current that kills
In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.
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Drawing the human animal
We might try to deny our animal instincts, but this series of extraordinary 17th-century drawings suggests they are only too apparent.
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Your gut’s instincts
Cultural historian Elsa Richardson explores the stomach’s influence over our emotions, and why trusting your gut is often good advice.
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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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Designing death in the virtual city
Danger and death are fun when they’re virtual – and when they incorporate realistic elements. Now the tables are turned, as urban planners learn from game environments.
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Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.
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Native Americans through the 19th-century lens
The stories behind Rinehart's photographs may not be as black and white as they first appear.
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Families fighting for justice
In 1962 a group of parents whose children had been affected by thalidomide began a decades-long battle in the law courts, the media and Parliament in order to win fair justice for all thalidomide survivors.
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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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The Martians are coming
For over a hundred years, antagonistic alien invaders have been a popular focus for the imagined end of the world. But the destructive consequences of human behaviour is far more frightening.