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Portraits, from a distance

Join photographer Michelle Sank on her daily walk around Exeter. Strength, frustration, resilience and eccentricity all show in these candid images portraying life under the constraints of coronavirus lockdown.

Sacred cows and nutritional purity in India

Apoorva Sripathi explores the complex reasons behind India’s recent boom in all things dairy – beginning with a 1970s Western food-aid programme.

How to talk to kids about race

When her daughter decided blonde was best, a red flag went up for Pragya Agarwal. In this essay, the behavioural scientist discusses childhood development, race and representation.

Lying low for lockdown and beyond

For Liz Carr the chances of catching Covid-19 are the same as for anyone else, but as a Disabled person she's at much greater risk of not getting the treatment she needs if she falls ill.

Voices of the NHS

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, when millions of us are especially grateful for our NHS, hear the voices of nine exceptional health workers explaining their passion for medicine and for taking care of others.

Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta

A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.

The shifting shape of language

Author Jessica Andrews explores how her brother’s deafness has influenced her relationship with words and the world.

Dark Matter responds to ‘Epidemic threats and racist legacies’

Animated-collage artist Dark Matter brings his unique combination of live footage and archive imagery to respond to a text suggesting that the field of epidemiology emerged in the 19th century imbued with the doctrine of Western imperialism.

Sharing Nature: Alone

Being alone in nature can be a contradictory experience of fear and freedom.

Dazzling luxury

As the 20th century dawned, both elite and masses basked in the marvellous and unearthly glow of the new electric illumination.

Getting sexy with cinnamon

Add some flavour to your love life with this spice. It will warm up more than just your buns.

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.

Eels and feels

For Georgian Londoners, the allure of electric animals was both intellectual and sensual.

Titans in the landscape

Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph

In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.

Hookah smoking in colonial Calcutta

Hookah smoking began in the royal courts of Mughal India, and like many other local customs, it was readily adopted by British colonials in the 18th century as a symbol of wealth and status.

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?

The amateur silversmith

It started as hobby and soon became a passion. Geraldine Holden tells us where the art and science of silver unite.

A brief history of tattoos

The earliest evidence of tattoo art dates from 5000 BC, and the practice continues to hold meaning for many cultures around the world.

Witches

Many of the women persecuted as witches in the 16th-century “witch craze” were over 50 and exhibited signs of menopause. Helen Foster suggests that the stigma of the wicked witch still affects older women and how they deal with menopause.

Busting myths about turkey-baster babies

The popular idea of sex-free, turkey-baster-led conception has been around since the 1970s. Christine Ro goes beyond the utensils drawer to find out if it’s ever really happened.

On contagion

Reading descriptions of the way humans become infested by parasitic flatworms, Daisy Lafarge experienced painful physical symptoms. Perhaps the very creature she was studying had invaded her body.

Cracks that let the light in

Rai Waddingham lives with voices other people cannot hear. Here she describes how she has come to accept, understand and calm her voices, and to acknowledge her strength.

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.

Medieval doodles

Fish, lute players and defaced demons: marginal doodles in some of Europe’s first printed books provide a tantalising glimpse into the late-medieval mind.