- Article
- Article
How to rehabilitate the concrete jungle
A huge concrete housing estate from the 1960s, now seen as an ecological mistake, is being drastically redeveloped, compounding the environmental errors. Owen Hatherley posits a more creative solution.
- Book extract
- 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.
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- Article
- Article
Aphasia and drawing elephants
When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.
- Article
- Article
Adapting to life as a thalidomide survivor
Growing up as a thalidomide survivor meant coping with all the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence, while having to fit into a world designed for the able-bodied.
- Article
- Article
Dying to be in nature
The modern funeral business is one that uses up precious resources and pollutes the planet. But you can make sure it’s only your memory that leaves its mark with these new and natural ways to leave this earth.
- Article
- Article
Sun salutations and yoga synthesis in India
Surya namaskars, or sun salutations, have a long history in South Asia, but their place at the heart of modern yoga is more recent.
- Article
- Article
Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability
By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.
- Article
- Article
Living with invisible illness
What happens when the signs of your illness are invisible to the rest of the world? Hannah Turner describes the daily struggles of living with invisible illness.
- Article
- Article
Fashion for an unruly body
One weekend, just before an operation to correct her scoliosis, Rosalind Jana stopped trying to hide her body. Read how those two days helped her step into the future.
- Article
- Article
Are people born violent?
Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.
- Article
- Article
Soil health and dairy farming in the UK
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.
- 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.
- Article
- Article
The unimprovable white cane
Recent technological additions to the white cane aim to make the world easier for visually impaired people to navigate. Alex Lee explores whether new is really better.
- Article
- Article
When wounds replace words
For the many thousands of refugees waiting in Greece, the process to establish the truth of their tragic personal histories is often extremely upsetting. But a group of medics and legal workers is working together to make the system more humane.
- Article
- Article
Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
- Long read
- Long read
Healthy scepticism
Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.