- Book extract
- Book extract
How stories bring us together
Elif Shafak considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening can nurture wisdom, connection and empathy.
- Article
- Article
Seeds for the future
Indigenous groups have a key role as guardians of biodiversity, and their knowledge could help us all preserve our world. To survive, we all need to collaborate, reject prejudice, and share what we know.
- Article
- Article
Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me
Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
How injury changed my brain
Meg Fozzard, who experienced a brain injury in her 20s, writes about the huge impact it's had on her life, and talks to others with similar injuries.
- Article
- Article
Are you still nursing?
Julia Martins might get the side-eye for breastfeeding a three-year-old in the UK but, as she explains, examples from history, as well as the cultural norms of Brazil, where she grew up, are firmly on the side of extended nursing.
- Article
- Article
What is violence?
Criminologist Laura Bui explores her early understanding of violence and outlines its definition and wider consequences.
- Article
- Article
My rainforest upbringing
In the introduction to her serial, research biologist Nataly Allasi Canales charts the influences that led her to passion for preserving the species of the Peruvian Amazon, where she spent her childhood.
- Article
- Article
Drops of water
In the compulsory isolation of lockdown, Daisy Lafarge’s repeated visits – via a new microscope – to the miniature worlds contained by drops of pond water provided her with the company and escapism she craved.
- Article
- Article
Vaccinating a community, saving lives
Doctor Jane Harvey always goes the extra mile to care for her patients, and in recent months that’s extended to huge efforts to save lives with her coronavirus vaccination push.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A doctor, his community and coronavirus
Reflecting on his experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic, GP Gavin Francis vividly recalls a home visit to a man stricken with breathing difficulties.
- Article
- Article
A brief history of ventilation
As ventilators continue to play an important part in helping very ill coronavirus patients, medical historian Dr Lindsey Fitzharris traces their development from the first attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation through centuries of medical crises.
- Article
- Article
When a private pee is a public disgrace
The free pee is getting rarer. And the lack of suitably equipped disabled toilets is condemning people to lives cloistered away in their own homes. Discover how toilet access for all is part of an equal society.
- 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
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.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Duelling doctors
An enduring enthusiasm for 18th-century gentlemen to defend their ‘honour’ by duelling placed doctors in a delicate position. Specially when they faced being shot themselves.
- Article
- Article
A flat-packed forest
The regular ritual of creating seasonally changing mini-forests for her indoor cats brought Abi Palmer a focus for reflection while the cats explored.
- Article
- Article
Finding my body through the wilderness
Writer Jennifer Neal used vigorous exercise classes to try and heal herself in the years following an assault. But it was only while hiking outdoors that she found true strength.
- Article
- Article
How to play in secret
In secret games the strangers around you are playing too. They just don’t know it. Read on for some great ideas for undercover fun at work, school – or almost anywhere.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Why make-believe matters
Michael Rosen explores the point of play, and reveals why we should all do a little more daydreaming.
- Article
- Article
How hip-hop can save your mental health
Hip-hop is an unusual tool in the mental health professional’s armoury. But fans and performers can testify to the sympathetic and restorative powers of the genre.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Rediscovering a love of the game
Sexism and homophobia in football prompted Lara Goodwin to stop playing the sport at 19. Today, while discrimination in the game is still rife, Lara has found hope – and like-minded players – in an inclusive east London club.
- Article
- Article
Little feet on Pett Level Beach
Poet and author Penny Pepper has vivid memories of childhood beach trips when her father was still alive, enthusiastically encouraging her curiosity and love of nature.