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46 results
  • Article
  • Article

A wheelchair in the world

| Jan GrueLinda Bournane Engelberth

Five years ago, Jan Grue, author of ‘I Live a Life Like Yours’, became a father. A wheelchair user since age eight, Grue explores how parenthood helped him reimagine his relationship with his wheelchair.

  • Article
  • Article

Air of threat

| Chloe AridjisMichael Salu

Novelist Chloe Aridjis vividly describes the suffocating atmosphere of Mexico City, as a combination of topography, crowded neighbourhoods, and reckless political diktats create a downward spiral.

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  • Article

In search of the ‘nature cure’

| Samantha WaltonSteven Pocock

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.

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A bad atmosphere in the Balkans

| Natasha TripneyDragan Mujan

The citizens of Belgrade, one of the most polluted cities in Europe, are finally pushing back against the polluters, whose activities they’ve been encouraged to accept.

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  • Article

Notes upon arrival

| Bhanu KapilMaïa Walcott

In an effort to feel at home back in the country of her birth, poet Bhanu Kapil recognises the small revelations of nature in a chilly UK spring as a way to reconnect.

  • Article
  • Article

A little wildness

| Rowan Hisayo BuchananFaye Heller

To salve her longing for a dog, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan chose a puppy. She found that, despite centuries of domestication, her dog still retains aspects of her wild ancestry.

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  • Article

My mother, and metaphors of a pandemic

| Sandy Di YuSteven Pocock

A pandemic. Two members of one family, living thousands of miles apart. And months of calls and messages that helped them grow closer.

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How light pollution affects our circadian rhythms

| Christine Ro

Too much of the wrong sort of light can send our natural cycles off-kilter – is city life messing with your circadian rhythm?

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  • Article

The secrets your teeth hold

| Michael A Berthaume

Discover how innocuous-looking human teeth hold a wealth of hidden information about our diet, health and evolution.

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  • Article

Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles

| Alice White

Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.

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Milk trails round Euston

| Esther LesliePeople’s MuseumBenjamin Gilbert

Where cows once grazed near Wellcome Collection in London, baristas now froth their milk. Esther Leslie uncovers Euston’s dairy-based urban history.

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Parks and politics in Brixton’s past and present

| Jacqueline L ScottYvonne Maxwell

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.

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The sum of my parts

| Jessica FursethKathleen Arundell

Testing positive for a rogue gene meant Jessica Furseth was more susceptible to cancer. After the years of anger and dissociation from her body that followed, she began to pick up the pieces.

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Homes for the hives of industry

| Emily Sargent

By building workers’ villages, industry titans demonstrated both philanthropy and control. Employees’ health improved, while rulebooks told them how to live ideal lives.

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Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination

| Mark Honigsbaum

The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

What the wind can bring

| Amanda Thomson

In this extract from ‘This Book is a Plant’, Amanda Thomson shares a newfound fascination with flowers, and reveals why our relationship with plants can also be complicated.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The meaning of happiness

| Tiffany Watt SmithEleanor Shakespeare

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.

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The intimate and invasive art of ethical taxidermy

| Helen BabbsThomas S G Farnetti

Does displaying dead animals bring us closer to nature, or drive us further apart?

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Migraine, creativity and me

| Lydia Ruffles

Novelist Lydia Ruffles explores how migraine has made her mind stretch, shrink, widen and change, and how it’s influenced her art.

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My ADHD titration diary

| Verity BabbsEmma Goulding

After her ADHD diagnosis, Verity Babbs wondered how well medication would work. Her diary details the controlled process of trying different doses, and how her body reacted.

  • Long read
  • Long read

The ambivalence of air

| Daisy LafargeCarol Nazatto

Daisy Lafarge investigates the effects of air quality and pressure on body and mind, exploring air as cure, but one with contradictions.