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54 results
  • Article
  • Article

Why gene editing can never eliminate disability

| Jaipreet Virdi

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

  • Article
  • Article

The smile catchers

| Esther Leslie

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

  • Article
  • Article

The amateur silversmith

| Geraldine Holden

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

  • Article
  • Article

Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

| Christine RoSteven Pocock

Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.

  • Article
  • Article

The birth of the public museum

| Elissavet Ntoulia

The first public museums evolved from wealthy collectors’ cabinets of curiosities and were quickly recognised as useful vehicles for culture.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Sockets and stumps

| Dr Emily Mayhew

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Fake news and the flu

| Hannah MawdsleyThomas S G Farnetti

Discover how history shows that fake news could play a deadly role – by generating potentially lethal misinformation during a future pandemic.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The science of why things spread

| Adam KucharskiCamilla Greenwell

From deadly pandemics to viral tweets, Adam Kucharski explores what makes something contagious.

  • Article
  • Article

Does mass media pave the way to fascism?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

In the aftermath of World War II, psychoanalysts found the psychological roots of authoritarianism closer to home than was comfortable.

  • Article
  • Article

Mark O’Connell’s prescription for writing

| Jennifer Trent Staves

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘To Be a Machine’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

  • Article
  • Article

Communities of cross-feeders

| Alev ScottVicky Scott

A desire to help leads some women to “cross-feed” – breastfeed other parents’ babies for free. Alev Scott delves into the emotions behind this altruistic act.

  • Article
  • Article

Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars

| Alex Green

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

  • Article
  • Article

Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses

| Christine Ro

Explore the perversely comforting appeal of a ghost in the house.

  • Article
  • Article

Doctors and the English seaside

| Jane Darcy

Fashionable seaside towns in England owe much of their popularity to 18th-century doctors, who advised them to take the 'sea cure'.

  • Article
  • Article

Drawing the human animal

| Allison C Meier

We might try to deny our animal instincts, but this series of extraordinary 17th-century drawings suggests they are only too apparent.

  • Article
  • Article

Thousands of years of women’s pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.

  • Article
  • Article

The enduring myth of the mad genius

| Anna Faherty

There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.

  • Article
  • Article

Bloody capitalism and the cash flow of the menstrual cycle

| Dr Camilla RøstvikJo Hanley

Once they thrived on taboos and shame. Now period-product manufacturers are finding new ways to flourish in this era of period activism – but products aren’t the end of the story.

  • Article
  • Article

Are people born violent?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Laura Bui explores how the nature vs nurture debate applies to those who commit homicide.

  • Article
  • Article

Searching for a place to call home

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

  • Article
  • Article

The conditional child

| Deanna Fei

Deanna Fei asks what it means to sustain a life, drawing on her own experience of having a premature baby as well as an 18th-century essay.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

“Above resistant pavements, I floated”

| Iain Sinclair

In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.

  • Article
  • Article

Lost in the mall and other false memories

| A R Hopwood

How can you remember an event that never took place? Find out how manipulation, misinformation and coercion can plant false memories in your mind.

  • Article
  • Article

Is fake news killing fictive art?

| A R Hopwood

Parafictional artists create projects where the imaginary interacts with real life. But the growth of so-called ‘fake news’ is providing a new challenge.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Our complicated love affair with light

| Lauren ColleeSteven Pocock

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.