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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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Sick of the theatre
What makes the stage a good place to share real-life experiences of ill health?
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Sacred cows and nutritional purity in India
Apoorva Sripathi explores the complex reasons behind India’s recent boom in all things dairy – beginning with a 1970s Western food-aid programme.
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The amateur silversmith
It started as hobby and soon became a passion. Geraldine Holden tells us where the art and science of silver unite.
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The psychology of Ouija
Explore the science behind table tilting and Ouija boards, and discover how the unscrupulous still make money from exploiting the ‘ideomotor’ effect.
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Mask, ritual and fertility
Today many of us learn about fertility, conception and pregnancy online. But that wasn’t always the way. Discover how masks and rituals played an important educational role.
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Making sunstroke insanity
Medical historian Dr Kristin Hussey takes a closer look at sunstroke and mental illness, and how, in the late 19th century, they connected at the crossroads of colonial science and the idea of whiteness.
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How light pollution affects our circadian rhythms
Too much of the wrong sort of light can send our natural cycles off-kilter – is city life messing with your circadian rhythm?
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Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me
Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.
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A history of mindfulness
Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.
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In search of the ‘nature cure’
Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.
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Equality in genetics
Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.
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What is air, and how do we know?
Watching bubbles in fermenting beer led 18th-century scientist Joseph Priestley to invent sparkling water – and to discover that different gases make up the air we breathe.
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- Book extract
The meaning of happiness
What is happiness? Tiffany Watt Smith charts how its definition has changed over time, from chance emotion to something that can be measured and controlled.
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The joy of playing hide-and-seek with rats
Playing hide-and-seek with lab rats has shown scientists that joy can be a great motivator for learning and social interaction – and not just for rats.
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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.
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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.
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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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How to cure the eco-anxious
Could community activism be the key to overcoming a fear of environmental collapse?
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Chemical highs and psychedelic research
Could recreational drugs make you happy? Kate Wilkinson explores why keen clubber Simon believes taking psychedelics has helped him develop as a person.
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Cowpox, Covid-19 and Jenner’s vaccination legacy
The well-known story of vaccination pioneer Edward Jenner has at its heart his drive to make vaccines free of charge and available to all. Now his principles extend to the global campaign for a people’s patent-free vaccine for Covid-19.
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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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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 hell of hay fever
After years suffering in silence, David Jesudason finds speaking out about his pollen allergy gives him hope for a future where his hay-fever symptoms are under control.
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Eugenics and the welfare state
Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.