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What is structural violence?

Structural violence is seemingly invisible. But its tentacles have invaded every part of many people’s lives, thoughts, experiences and expectations, shaping them in ways they don’t even realise.

How DNA’s spirals help us understand the shape of life

Twisting across our screens, the double helix of DNA is an icon of our age. And visualising microscopic structures is integral to our understanding of science, as Charlotte Sleigh reveals.

Why make-believe matters

Michael Rosen explores the point of play, and reveals why we should all do a little more daydreaming.

Ways appear

While his sense of body shame meant the personal side of his life was unfulfilled, Chris’s career was rewarding. His own childhood experiences gave him profound empathy for the children he worked with.

The anatomy of a brain dissection

Dissecting the brain after death not only helps confirm a diagnosis, but it can also teach us so much more about the symptoms and causes of brain diseases and how to treat them.

Why even plastic surgery can’t hide you from facial recognition

Once upon a time, plastic surgery allowed a few notorious criminals to evade the law. But today, sophisticated facial-recognition technology has turned dreams of anonymity to dust.

Tracing the toxic story of tear gas

Investigating tear gas – from factory to Black Lives Matter protest – Imani Jacqueline Brown uncovers a toxic legacy where pollution, violence and racism are intimately entwined.

Another way to listen

Background noise is something we often try to ignore. Adjoa Wiredu explores what happens if we intentionally choose to tune in.

The relationship between science and art

Often seen as opposites, science and art both depend on observation and synthesis.

A message from my skin

As wildfires threatened Seattle, resident Sydney Baker experienced corresponding flares of acne and rashes. Her skin was telling her something about the health of the world around her.

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?

Inside the mind of Living with Buildings curator, Emily Sargent

Curator Emily Sargent reveals why council estates and a Finnish TB sanatorium were chosen for the ‘Living with Buildings’ exhibition.

Is it really OK to not be OK?

Our mental healthcare system is still the poor relation of services that treat physical illness, and the pandemic has shone a spotlight on this situation. Campaigner James Downs argues for fundamental change.

How to play with drunk people

Lower your inhibitions and join Holly Gramazio for fast-paced games made even more fun by alcohol.

Two health centres, two ideologies

Two futuristic, light-filled buildings aimed to bring forward-looking healthcare to city dwellers. But the principles behind each were very different.

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.

The shape of thought

Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s description of the moment in 1887 when he saw a brain cell for the first time never fails to move neuroscientist Richard Wingate to tears. Here he captures that enduring sense of wonder.

The tower in fiction, film and life

The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.

Hierarchy

Ranked, graded and ordered into a structure that bestows and denies authority. But for who?

An animated almanac for the modern world

Discover why Thomas Coleman wanted to make a medieval folding almanac relevant to the modern world and see the film for yourself.

Lovesickness and ‘The Love Thief’

An 11th-century poem of love, lust and possibly gruesome death still resonates today.

Interpreting the Ayurvedic Man

A British Sign Language video is the latest interpretation of an unique 18th-century Nepali painting about Ayurvedic medicine.

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.

Intertwined with air

Siwakorn Odochao details his people’s way of perceiving trees and humans as intimately connected, and draws on the air as the element that weaves between them. Through the co-dependency of humans and trees to prepare the air for each other, he elaborates on the relationship between air, health and environment.

Titans in the landscape