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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.

Rose Mackenberg’s deceptive activism

Discover how a New York private investigator became part of Houdini’s mission to expose the fraudulent mediums making money from their vulnerable, grieving clients.

The blood notebooks

Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.

Two health centres, two ideologies

Two futuristic, light-filled buildings aimed to bring forward-looking healthcare to city dwellers. But the principles behind each were very different.

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.

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?

Disturbed minds and disruptive bodies

Prison officers tried to regulate women’s minds and bodies and maintain a new disciplinary routine in the second half of the 1800s.

Chasing spring

Isabella Kaminski reflects on a transformative journey that saw her cycle the length of the UK, tracking the first signs of spring. She explores what the changing seasons can tell us about ourselves and the climate crisis.

Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations

Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.

A Drop in the Ocean: internal reality

This immersive audio piece was designed to give listeners a greater understanding of psychosis, something that’s hard to explain in words.

Unmasking neurodivergent parenthood

Observing her eldest child’s neurodivergent traits and supporting his education set Erin Beeston wondering about her own ‘odd’ behaviour in childhood, and whether adult diagnosis could be empowering.

Healthy scepticism

Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.

An animated almanac for the modern world

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

Dazzling luxury

As the 20th century dawned, both elite and masses basked in the marvellous and unearthly glow of the new electric illumination.

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.

Eels and feels

For Georgian Londoners, the allure of electric animals was both intellectual and sensual.

Is your job bad for your teeth?

Some surprising occupations pose hidden risks to dental health. Could your ivories be in particular peril?

Doctors and the English seaside

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

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.

Divining the world through an artist’s almanac

Amanda Couch's artists book, 'Huwawa in the Everyday: an almanac' is inspired by the entrail like folds of a medieval folding and its function as a guide for astrological divinations linking the body, health and the heavens. Like the original almanac her work is designed to be carried out into the wider world.

How architecture builds a profession of stress

Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.

Titans in the landscape

The current that kills

In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.

Writing back to authority

As she cuts up old doctors’ letters and uses them to compose absurd poems, Caroline Butterwick reflects on the catharsis of creation and proposes writing as a way to take back control.