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Yoga adapts to time and place
A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.
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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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The Key to Memory: Follow your nose
Elissavet Ntoulia explores what a pair of pomanders can tell us about how and why we remember.
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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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Western magic’s fascination with the foreigner
Could modern magic shows be perpetuating damaging cultural stereotypes? Shelley Saggar shows how ‘exotic’ costumes and imagery are far from harmless fun.
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Is shoegaze the loneliest genre of music?
Christine Ro explores the connection between shyness and shoegaze.
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How electromagnetic therapy inspired me
Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.
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Don’t call me a strong Black woman
Her upbringing taught Jaydee Seaforth that she could never show pain or weakness, even when her internal distress was extreme. Find out how she learned to listen to her body.
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How to play with people who are better than you
It’s frustrating to lose a game to the same player every time. But help is at hand. Discover the ways you can make a game respond dynamically to participants so everyone has a chance of winning.
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How to play with drunk people
Lower your inhibitions and join Holly Gramazio for fast-paced games made even more fun by alcohol.
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- Book extract
Sockets and stumps
Historian Emily Mayhew has met soldiers who have survived the seemingly unsurvivable. Here, she explores the part prosthetics play in the process of military rehabilitation.
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Our Covid complicity
Athena Stevens thought she had a cold that she tried to ignore, but it turned out to be Covid-19. Here she reflects on how we have all put ourselves and others at risk with the choices we’ve made during this pandemic.
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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.
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A freezer full of breastmilk
When new mum Alev Scott began pumping her milk between feeds, she soon found she was freezing more breastmilk than her baby would ever need. So Alev began to investigate ways to share her oversupply.
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Martina Amati on ‘Under’
Visitors experiencing Under by Martina Amati
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- Book extract
How to stay together while keeping apart
Vivek Murthy explores how we can keep physically distant while staying emotionally connected.
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The ancient doctors who refused payment
The NHS might only be 70 years old, but the idea of free healthcare goes back to Ancient Greece, when devout doctors provided their services without charge.
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Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure
Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.
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Bleeding healthy
For thousands of years, and in many different cultures, people have practised bloodletting for health and medical reasons. Julia Nurse explains where and when bleeding was used, how it was done, and why.
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Succumbing to stimming in dance
As a child, Susanna Dye felt ashamed of their need to stim, but has found a way to incorporate these repetitive movements into their creative practice as a dancer and facilitator.
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In celebration of LGBTQ+ comedy
At school, homophobic jokes made Ella Braidwood feel uncomfortable and ashamed. Fast-forward to today’s inclusive comedy scene, and her very different feelings of hope and happiness.
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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.
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Selling sex and sacrificing safety
Sex workers who report crimes against them can face a “what do you expect?” attitude. But one organisation is working to protect vulnerable people in the sex industry.
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Words of hope and anger
Author and spoken word poet Penny Pepper remembers her childhood dreams, and speaks out against the barriers society uses to prevent disabled people from fulfilling their potential.
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The intermediate life of spirits
Courttia Newland explores the events and his feelings surrounding the death of his mother-in-law, Tara Chauhan.