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14 results
  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Obesity and Britain’s boys

| Abbie Trayler-Smith

Six young men and six experiences of being overweight. Find out how these boys and their loved ones feel about this stigmatising issue.

  • Article
  • Article

Eugenics and the welfare state

| Indy BhullarGergo Varga

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.

  • Article
  • Article

The making of ‘Quacks’

| Helen Babbs

How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Of incubators, orchids and artificial wombs

| Claire HornSteven Pocock

In this extract from Claire Horn’s new book, ‘Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth’, she traces the development of the artificial womb, soon to become a reality.

  • Article
  • Article

How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

| Philip Ball

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

  • Article
  • Article

The colonist who faced the blue terror

| Anna Faherty

India, 1857. In a British enclave, Katherine Bartrum watches her friend, and then her family, succumb to the deadly cholera.

  • Article
  • Article

The problem of the punctured heart

| Thomas MorrisEmily Evans

During World War II a young American surgeon working in England perfected shrapnel-removal techniques that saved dozens of lives. Discover how one case sealed his reputation as the founder of cardiac surgery.

  • Article
  • Article

What Black women do when the NHS fails them

| Sabrina-Maria AndersonMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.

  • Article
  • Article

Beating the bodysnatchers

| Allison C Meier

When a rise in grave robbing called for strong measures, mortsafes became the unassailable solution. Allison C. Meier explores.

  • Article
  • Article

The tradesman who confronted the pestilence

| Anna Faherty

The City of London, 1665. As the Great Plague hits the capital, John New faces a deadly dilemma.

  • Article
  • Article

Louis Wain’s cryptic cats

| Bryony Benge-Abbott

Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Dangers inside and out

| Eimear McBrideAlexandra Gallagher

Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.

  • Article
  • Article

Befriending heavy breathers

| Mel GrantPhillip Job

Read the fascinating story behind the rare manual that helped volunteers on one of Britain’s first free telephone helplines to deal with masturbating callers.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Our complicated love affair with light

| Lauren ColleeSteven Pocock

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.