- Article
- Article
Parks and politics in Brixton’s past and present
Gentrification is creeping along Railton Road, but racial inequality still lingers in memories of the 1980s, and in the continuing lack of green-space access.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Photo story
- Photo story
My body, my hair
To depilate or not to depilate? Farah Esset and Eden Rickson share a collection of personal pictures and stories that explore the intimate interplay between body hair and identity.
- Article
- Article
Mixed heritage lesbian couples and fertility treatment
For a lesbian couple who want to share their different cultural heritages with their child, fertility treatment can get very complicated.
- 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
The Key to Memory: Write it down
Nick Dent explores what the Library of the Human Genome can tell us about how and why we remember.
- Article
- Article
The power of unicorns
Discover the unlikely connection between pharmaceuticals and unicorns.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The 200-year search for normal people
Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.
- Article
- Article
Our endless quest for eternal youth
From poisonous 16th-century cosmetics to the latest “vampire facelift”, discover the fashions in unsavoury methods for improving our appearance.
- Article
- Article
How Californian dairy farmers stole a way of life
When European settlers drained a beautiful Californian lake to provide dairy grazing, the lives of nearby Native American peoples changed out of all recognition. But recent rainfall is strengthening hopes of a return to the old ways.
- Article
- Article
Why we need to decolonise the skies
Astronomer Dr Tana Joseph explores how rethinking way we look at the stars could improve our relationship with our own planet and make it a healthier place to live.
- Article
- Article
Conflicted and confused about lithium
Covid-19 left Laura Grace Simpkins out of work and living back with her parents. She now had time to restart her research into her medication, but was she mad to continue?
- Article
- Article
The desire for lighter skin
Discover why some Black people feel more attractive with lighter skin. Ngunan Adamu speaks to three women who explain how they got hooked on skin bleaching.
- Article
- Article
How nature is defending itself in court
The idea that nature has legal rights is increasingly being taken seriously, but who gets to speak for it? Isabella Kaminski asks how the non-human can be represented within a human-made system.
- Article
- Article
Performing my disability
Caroline Butterwick explores the idea of disability as performative, and the pressure to act out what we think others expect.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics
In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A dispatch from the frontiers of man and machine
Harry Parker’s life changed overnight when he stepped on a bomb and lost his legs. He argues that being an amputee doesn’t make him an outlier; we are all hybrid.
- Article
- Article
What Black women do when the NHS fails them
Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.
- Article
- Article
How we bury our children
Following her baby daughter’s funeral, Wendy Pratt found that visiting the grave gave her a way to carry out physical acts of caring for her child. Here she considers how parents’ nurturing instincts live on after a child’s death.
- Article
- Article
Walk, interrupted
By listing all the things that get in her way, Caroline Butterwick wants to create an embodied experience of disability and convince you that inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.
- Article
- Article
Documents of my breath
Swati Joshi’s childhood bronchitis meant that she couldn’t imagine being able to breathe easily. As an adult, she chronicles her recovery through artworks created using bubbles and her breath.
- Photo story
- Photo story
The last glass-eye maker in Britain
Meet Jost Haas – the UK’s last artificial-eye maker working exclusively with glass.
- Article
- Article
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.
- Article
- Article
Surviving as an asexual person in a heteronormative world
Experiencing no sexual attraction led Seleena Laverne Daye to feel she was somehow failing as an adult. But she found a way to claim her identity and to thrive.
- Article
- Article
Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me
Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.