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Life before assistive technology
When an inherited condition caused Alex Lee’s vision to deteriorate, he began to discover the technologies that would help him navigate the world around him. Here he describes how his life began to change.
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- Book extract
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.
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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.
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How architecture builds a profession of stress
Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.
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Getting the measure of pain
In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.
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- Book extract
“I’ve never talked to anybody about this before”
Douglas is furious. He’s at crisis point and needs help. Read the first of his two sessions with psychoanalyst Susie Orbach.
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Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta
A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.
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Dynamo on the past, present and future of magic
The magician takes a tour and shares stories of history and inspiration.
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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?
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How do advertisers get inside our heads?
Vance Packard exposed techniques of mass manipulation developed by 1950s advertisers that are still at work today in the age of big data.
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What is violence?
Criminologist Laura Bui explores her early understanding of violence and outlines its definition and wider consequences.
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Guerrilla public health
From safe-use guides to needle exchange schemes, Harry Shapiro reflects on 40 years of drug harm reduction in the UK.
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Journeying home
A serious health scare was the catalyst to Chris beginning the process of understanding his experiences more clearly, and using that new insight to help other intersex people.
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Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean
Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.
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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.
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Shame and how our bodies betray us
Embarrassment about our desires, bodies and bodily functions can silence us. Lucia Osborne-Crowley asks whether a low-level but constant sense of shame is stopping us getting the help we need.
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Fleeing fear, defying prejudice
As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.
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Navigating in a connected world
Alex Lee ponders the promising ideas, stalled projects and pricey gadgets that aim to help visually impaired people get out and about. But it seems that an actual human could be the essential ingredient.
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The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy
With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.
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Defying deafness through music
Did you know that Beethoven’s profession meant he was ashamed to admit to being deaf? Find out how similar prejudices persist today and how our writer is helping to break them down.
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The child whose town rejected vaccines
Gloucester, 1896. Ethel Cromwell is taken ill at the height of Britain’s last great smallpox epidemic.
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Invisibility
Why do menopausal women feel invisible? Because nobody talks about menopause or because society doesn't value older women?
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Where does violence come from?
The popular understanding of certain ideas in psychology have become so embedded that it’s easy to blame the parents when a young person commits a crime. Laura Bui looks to the past for evidence.
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Heating up and drying out
Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.
- 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.