- Article
- Article
The secrets your teeth hold
Discover how innocuous-looking human teeth hold a wealth of hidden information about our diet, health and evolution.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Death around the world in ten objects
Death is many things to many cultures: violent, holy, frightening, calm, disgusting... or just a gateway to another life.
- Article
- Article
Ken’s ten: looking back at ten years of Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection founder Ken Arnold picks his favourite exhibits.
- Article
- Article
Would you like to buy a dinosaur?
Two remarkable letters and a drawing of a plesiosaur by Mary Anning offer a tantalising portal into the exciting world of fossil hunting and discovery of the 1800s.
- Article
- Article
Crime drama and the realistic cadaver
Today we are accustomed to the increasingly realistic look of dead bodies in on-screen dramas. Special-effects expert Hildegunn M S Traa reveals how crime and morgue scenes reflect the social idea of death.
- Article
- Article
Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination
The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Pum Dunbar’s living lessons
Read the ‘legends’ that give insight into Pum Dunbar’s creative process while producing her recent series of collages.
- Article
- Article
Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack
Cold War-era predictions of death on a vast scale became routine. But the British authorities were less prepared to dispose of the bodies.
- Interview
- Interview
Inside the minds of Teeth’s two curators, James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing
James Peto and Emily Scott-Dearing talk visceral reactions, their interactions and object extractions.
- Article
- Article
Spanish flu and the depiction of disease
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed many millions more than World War I did. Find out why contemporary artistic depictions of its devastating impact are so rare.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Diagnosing the past
Historical texts rarely supply enough detail for a definitive diagnosis, so medical historians need to proceed with caution.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The meaning of happiness
What is happiness? Tiffany Watt Smith charts how its definition has changed over time, from chance emotion to something that can be measured and controlled.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Eating their own kind
In his grisly history of cannibalism, zoologist Bill Schutt asks what drives an animal to feast on its own flesh and blood.