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Stories

  • Interview

Refugee health on a pound a day

Two refugees living a hand-to-mouth existence in the UK explain how trauma has affected their health, and how a little kindness is bringing them hope.

  • Article

The evil eye and social anxiety

The ‘look’ of the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. This ancient curse might be deliberate, inflicted with an envious glare, or it could be accidental, the result of undue attention or excessive praise.

  • Article

What our facial hair says about us

Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.

  • Article

The power of unicorns

Discover the unlikely connection between pharmaceuticals and unicorns.

All stories (7)

Images

  • Shuster (?), Iran: doorway of a shop with two older men in turbans seated next to baskets of produce. Photograph, 1910/1920 (?).
  • Iran: a roadway leading towards a town with a decorative mosque (?); barefooted townspeople on the road. Photograph (by William Morgan Shuster ?), 1910/1920 (?).
  • Danae racemosa (L.) Moench Asparagaceae. Alexandrian or Poet's laurel. Distribution: Turkey to Iran. A monotypic genus with supreme adaptation to dry conditions, bearing its flowers and fruits on phylloclades, leaf like expanded stems. The phylloclades are too thick for sunlight to pass through so have chlorophyll containing cells on both sides (the cells in the middle do not) and stomata on both sides to facilitate CO2 diffusion into the plant. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Islamic map of the world. The north is at the bottom, with the west to the right surrounded by unknown seas. The Indian Ocean, with the Red Sea, is on the left, with China, India and Iran in boxes to the right. The other sea shown is the Mediterranean next to which is a black square indicating Rome and a circle Constantinople. The Nile flows from the Mediterranean to the east and into the north then turn east and head towards a large circle indicating its source in Africa.
  • Acanthus dioscoridis L. Acanthaceae. Distribution: Iran, Iraq, southern Turkey. Herbaceous perennial flowering plant. Named for Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, 1st century Greek physician and herbalist whose book, De Materia Medica, was the main source of herbal medicinal information for the next 1,600 years. He describes some 500 plants and their medicinal properties. His manuscript was copied and annotated over the centuries, and the earliest Greek text in existence is the illustrated Juliana Anicia Codex dated 512CE (Beck, 2005). The first English translation was made around 1650 by John Goodyear and published by Robert T. Gunther in 1934
  • The parable of the mote and the beam. Oil painting by Minus (Minas) M. Zorab, 1880.
  • A crocodile, a gigantic fish and an animal that eats flying fish. Gouache painting.
  • Two spotted divs, one of them with two heads. Gouache painting by a Persian artist, possibly Indian ca. 1650 (?).
  • The fire ordeal of Prince Siyavash. Gouache painting by a Persian artist, ca. 1800 (?).
  • A Persian man stands alongside a div (demon). Gouache painting by a Persian artist, ca. 1750 (?).
All images (105)

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