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15 results
  • Article
  • Article

The secrets your teeth hold

| Michael A Berthaume

Discover how innocuous-looking human teeth hold a wealth of hidden information about our diet, health and evolution.

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  • Article

Jim, the horse of death

| Chris Baker

Horses’ blood was used to produce an antitoxin that saved thousands of children from dying from diphtheria, but contamination was a deadly problem. Find out how a horse called Jim was the catalyst for the beginnings of medical regulation.

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A quick guide to drugs, the brain and brain chemistry

| Barry J Gibb

Discover some of the major chemicals that govern activity in our brains, how they work, and why certain drugs have the effects they do.

  • Article
  • Article

Soil health and dairy farming in the UK

| Angela HuiCat O’Neil

Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.

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Bleeding healthy

| Julia Nurse

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.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Naked, not nude

| Caroline VoutFunmi Lijadu

Classicist Caroline Vout argues that it’s time to take the dust covers off the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and to encounter their bodies not nude, but naked.

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Confronting male stereotypes in the classroom

| Okechukwu NzeluRobin Hammond

Sometimes men just don’t like football. Writer and teacher Okechukwu Nzelu decides to be himself in front of his students.

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John Walter on ‘Alien Sex Club’

| John Walter

I’m a painter, but I make worlds.

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The hell of hay fever

| David JesudasonSteven Pocock

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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The tale of the toxic kidneys

| Thomas MorrisEmily Evans

In 1954 a serendipitous coming together of skills and circumstances allowed the first successful organ transplant to take place. Read how Richard Herrick’s life was prolonged by his identical twin’s generosity.

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Sacred cows and nutritional purity in India

| Apoorva SripathiCat O’Neil

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 white tears of Taranaki

| Sarah Alice HopkinsonCat O’Neil

Taranaki in Aotearoa, New Zealand, is home to the world’s largest dairy factory. Sarah Hopkinson questions the price paid by an area dominated by monoculture.

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  • Article

We need less ‘sickle cell warriors’ and more allies

| Cheryl TelferMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Rejecting the epithet “warrior”, Cheryl Telfer describes the pervasive effect sickle cell disease has on her life, and calls for more people to donate blood to help sicklers.

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Queer cafés and gay mylk

| Holly ReganCat O’Neil

Holly Regan explores queer London spaces where the alternative – oat milk – is the norm for the communities gathering there.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

What the wind can bring

| Amanda Thomson

In this extract from ‘This Book is a Plant’, Amanda Thomson shares a newfound fascination with flowers, and reveals why our relationship with plants can also be complicated.