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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.

The joy of playing hide-and-seek with rats

Playing hide-and-seek with lab rats has shown scientists that joy can be a great motivator for learning and social interaction – and not just for rats.

Our complicated love affair with light

Sunlight is essential, but our relationship with artificial light is less clear cut. It expands what’s possible; it also obscures and polices. In this long read, Lauren Collee pits light against night, and reveals the shady places in between.

The ‘undesirable epileptic’

Abused in her marriage for being 'a sick woman', Aparna Nair looked to history to make sense of the response to her epilepsy. She discovered how centuries of fear and discrimination were often endorsed by science and legislation.

Eugenics and the welfare state

Indy Bhullar explores the ideas of William Beveridge and Richard Titmuss, who were strongly influenced by eugenic thinking, and yet championed the idea of the welfare state.

Crones

Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.

Why gene editing can never eliminate disability

In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

How music opens the doors of memory and the mind

People living with dementia can often still listen, perform or move to music. What does this tell us about how memories are formed?

Intelligence testing, race and eugenics

Specious ideas and assumptions about intelligence that were born during the great flourishing of eugenics well over 100 years ago still inform the British education system today, as Nazlin Bhimani reveals.

In search of the ‘nature cure’

Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.

The colonist who faced the blue terror

India, 1857. In a British enclave, Katherine Bartrum watches her friend, and then her family, succumb to the deadly cholera.