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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.

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.

Wonder Woman’s wonder women

Discover more about the women who inspired an icon: Wonder Woman’s story of bondage, bracelets and birth control.

Booze and bad behaviour

Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.

Jim, the horse of death

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.

A message from my skin

As wildfires threatened Seattle, resident Sydney Baker experienced corresponding flares of acne and rashes. Her skin was telling her something about the health of the world around her.

The art of soundproof design

Too much noise is more than annoying – it has serious negative effects on health and cognitive ability. Find out how designers and architects are mitigating the downsides of sound.

Shakespeare’s cholerics were the real drama queens

In Shakespeare’s times, people’s personalities were categorised by four temperaments. The choleric temperament was hot-tempered and active.

How my wheelchair changed my life

A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.

Where hoarding and dementia meet

As Grandma’s dementia advanced, the things she’d amassed became more important: they consoled her. Clearing safe walkways through the piles became the first – though unwelcome – compromise.

Tracing the toxic story of tear gas

Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.

Hyperfocus and hobbies

Alex Chan talks about the power of ADHD-associated hyperfocus and how they’ve become wary of feeding it too often.

The healing power of the physic garden

Having experienced the healing power of plants and gardens, Iona Glen goes in search of present-day “physic gardens” and their origins in history.

The problem of the punctured heart

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.

How hospital care fails disabled bodies

Hospitals aim to make sick people well. But if the sick person is also disabled, the unbending nature of monolithic hospital systems can easily worsen the situation. Here Jamie Hale writes from painful personal experience.

Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology

How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.

Homes for the hives of industry

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

Titans in the landscape

My ADHD titration diary

After her ADHD diagnosis, Verity Babbs wondered how well medication would work. Her diary details the controlled process of trying different doses, and how her body reacted.

The smile catchers

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

Thalidomide babies

In a time without scans or antenatal tests, neither medical staff nor parents were prepared for the damage to the foetus caused by the thalidomide drug.

Electrical epilepsy and the EEG Test

The EEG (electroencephalograph) literally electrified the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. But for Aparna Nair the dreaded EEG tests of her adolescence were a painful ordeal.

Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.

The ambivalence of air

Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.

Cataloguing Audrey

Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.