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Stories

  • Article

The art of soundproof design

Too much noise is more than annoying – it has serious negative effects on health and cognitive ability. Find out how designers and architects are mitigating the downsides of sound.

  • Article

The art of scientific glassblowing

Exciting things happen when art, craft, engineering and science collide. Glassblower Gayle Price is proof of that.

  • Article

The freedom to provoke

Jamie Hale talks to performer and director Emma Selwyn about the joy of creating work that celebrates, rather than suppresses, autistic behaviours.

  • Article

Acting, disableism and inclusive theatre

Deaf theatre director Jenny Sealey discusses inclusivity, community and the resilience of disabled actors.

All stories (37)

Images

  • Heriot Watt formerly Edinburgh School of Arts College.
  • The Royal Institution or School of Arts, Edinburgh, Scotland. Line engraving by A. Cruse, 1829, after T.H. Shepherd.
  • The life school at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, with William Hunter, left, teaching anatomy. Drawing attributed to Elias Martin, ca. 1770.
  • Leeds New Mechanics' Institution and School of Art, Leeds, Yorkshire. Wood engraving by W.E. Hodgkin, 1867, after C. Brodrick.
  • The Mechanics' Institute and School of Science and Art, Keighley, Yorkshire. Wood engraving by W.E. Hodgkin after Lockwood and Mawson.
  • Ground plan of a school of drawing: cross-section with a vignette above showing art students drawing after a life model and sculpture. Etching by B.L. Prevost after C.N. Cochin, 1763.
  • Taxus baccata L. Taxaceae European Yew. Trees are feminine in Latin, so while Taxus has a masculine ending (-us), its specific name, baccata (meaning 'having fleshy berries' (Stearn, 1994)), agrees with it in gender by having a female ending ( -a). Distribution: Europe. Although regarded as poisonous since Theophrastus, Gerard and his school friends used to eat the red berries (they are technically called 'arils') without harm. Johnson clearly ate the fleshy arils and spat out the seed, which is as poisonous as the leaves. It is a source of taxol, an important chemotherapeutic agent for breast and other cancers. It was first extracted from the bark of T. brevifolia, the Pacific yew tree, in 1966. About 1,100 kg of bark produces 10 g of taxol, and 360,000 trees a year would have been required for the needs of the USA – an unsustainable amount. In 1990 a precursor of taxol was extracted from the needles of the European yew so saving the Pacific trees. It is now produced in fermentation tanks from cell cultures of Taxus. Curiously, there is a fungus, Nodulisporium sylviforme, which lives on the yew tree, that also produces taxol. Because taxol stops cell division, it is also used in the stents that are inserted to keep coronary arteries open. Here it inhibits – in a different way, but like anti-fouling paint on the bottom of ships – the overgrowth of endothelial cells that would otherwise eventually block the tube. The economic costs of anticancer drugs are significant. Paclitaxel ‘Taxol’ for breast cancer costs (2012) £246 every 3 weeks
  • Boys are being taught by an schoolmaster sitting at a table. Stipple engraving by George Keating after Pasquilini.
  • The Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum, Wandsworth: the facade. Wood engraving by W. E. Hodgkin after B. Sly.
  • A surgical operation. Oil painting by Reginald Brill, 1934-1935.
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