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Born in the NHS

Despite underfunding, strikes and scandals, the first two decades of the 2000s has seen the British people’s love of and loyalty to the NHS soar.

Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red

Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.

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.

Reclaiming my story

Sharing her story of mental illness and treatment with trainee social workers has helped Caroline Butterwick make sense of her past, and continues to be a positive part of her life today.

Bringing biotech to the people

Amateur scientists have inspired all kinds of frightening scenarios, from Frankenstein’s monster to ‘The Fly’ and ‘Breaking Bad’. But it can be a force for good. Today’s DIYbio enthusiasts are having fun – and even making lucrative breakthrough discoveries.

People against pollution

Alice Bell reflects on what happens when communities help solve environmental problems, and whether citizen science can help fight industrial pollution today.

How the mental health system fails Black people

Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.

Fantastic beasts and unnatural history

Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.

The birth of Britain's National Health Service

Starkly unequal access to healthcare gave rise to Nye Bevan’s creation of a truly national health service.

Synaesthesia, or when senses overlap

What’s it like to see heartbeats, taste Tube stations or hear paintings?

Society, not Covid-19, makes us vulnerable

Rick Burgess coped with the death of his mother in February 2020 by immersing himself in the task of protecting his community from Covid-19 and challenging the government's failure to protect and support elderly and Disabled people during the pandemic.

Chemotherapy-day drawings

Undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, artist Clare Smith produced around 70 abstract drawings while sitting in the chemotherapy chair. She reflects on how creativity can bring respite in a crisis.

The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.

Mary Morris-Knibb, a woman of courage and ability

A Jamaican election banner reveals the story of a pioneering women’s rights campaigner who continues to inspire 80 years on.

Generation portraits

Photographer Julian Germain’s major project focusing on portraits of multi-generational families came to a sudden halt during the various Covid-19 lockdowns. Here families celebrate coming together again in words and images.

Mapping the body

These intricate anatomical drawings show how Ayurveda practitioners have explored the human body and how it works.

The Key to Memory: Mark it out

Sarah Bentley explores what a papier-mâché figure from Japan can tell us about how and why we remember.

Daniel Regan on using photography to manage emotions

Artist Daniel Regan manages his emotions and stays grounded through photography, allowing him to engage in the world around him.

Documents of my breath

Swati Joshi’s childhood bronchitis meant that she couldn’t imagine being able to breathe easily. As an adult, she chronicles her recovery through artworks created using bubbles and her breath.

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.

Questioning the psychoanalyst

Maggie Robbins gives her personal take on the common misconceptions around her field of work.

Titans in the landscape

Dangers inside and out

Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.

Your gut’s instincts

Cultural historian Elsa Richardson explores the stomach’s influence over our emotions, and why trusting your gut is often good advice.

Wonder years

The confusion and secrecy surrounding his condition seriously affected Chris’s mental health, blighting his teenage years. But somehow he began to hope and plan for the future.