Stories

Our words and pictures explore the connections between science, medicine, life and art. Dive into a story no matter where in the world you are. (Want to write for us? Here's how.)

Empathy comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Empathy

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes might only make it harder for both of you to walk.

Part of Body Squabbles

  • Serial
Part4

The tower in fiction, film and life

The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.

Part of The Architecture Diaries

Photograph of a coloured lithograph showing a withered tree bearing apples labelled with sins; representing the life of sin c. 1870, after J. Bakewell.
  • Essay

Why all of us are evil

Science proves that we’re all capable of evil: your secret fantasy about killing someone you hate is surprisingly normal. But the way to better moral choices is to fight emotional instinct.
Image of a small ivory model of a woman with removable mid-drift revealing organs and foetus in womb beneath. She lies on red velvet.
  • Image gallery

Exposing the secrets of the human body

Scientists, artists, and philosophers have long studied our anatomy to try to discover what it means to be human.

Part of From Our Collections

Exercise comic by Rob Bidder
  • Comic

Exercise

Exercise to music to stimulate both your mood and your muscles.

Part of Body Squabbles

Intoxicating Histories

Read our six-part story on intoxicants, the different forms they can take, and the blurry lines between safe and dangerous, legal and illegal.

Photograph of an alcoholic spirit bottle on a colourful background.
  • Serial
Part1

Booze and bad behaviour

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of a pretend sheet of LSD tabs with a butterfly motif, against a colourful abstract background.
  • Serial
Part2

Tripping for spiritualism and science

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of an e-cigarette, against a colourful abstract background surrounded by wisps of smoke.
  • Serial
Part3

Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of syringe filled with liquid sticking out of a colourful background.
  • Serial
Part4

Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of a smart phone held in a selfie-stick, in front of a colourful swirly background. The background pattern is repeated on the phone screen.
  • Serial
Part5

Self-obsessing in the age of selfies

Part of Intoxicating Histories

Photograph of a VR headset on a colourful patterned background.
  • Serial
Part6

Virtual reality and the fix of the future

Part of Intoxicating Histories

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Artist's montage showing the garden suburb of Bedford Park within a snowglobe, with historical figures looking on
  • Serial
Part3

Building a dream in the garden suburbs

In the late 19th century a ‘garden suburb’ promised a retreat from London’s dirt and crowds. See how this new concept was developed to appeal to the health concerns of the literary classes.

Part of The Architecture Diaries

Illustration of a GP's office with a large and demanding patient
  • Essay

Why some patients make my heart sink

Instead of getting nowhere with certain demanding, manipulative patients, our anonymous GP wonders if there’s a way to help them.

Part of The Secret GP

  • Image gallery

Faces of the NHS

Meet some of the exceptional workers whose careers span the seven decades of the NHS. Their portraits and words reveal their passion for medicine and for taking care of people.
Migraine comic by Rob Bidder (detail)
  • Comic

Migraine

Migraines are earthquakes in your head and their seismic effects can feel just as devastating.

Part of Body Squabbles

Artist's montage showing model villages built by industrialists.
  • Serial
Part2

Homes for the hives of industry

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

Part of The Architecture Diaries

Photograph from the mid-20th Century Peckham Pioneer Centre, showing a women holding a baby in the foreground, and behind three women who appear to be conversing beside three cribs containing babies.
  • Essay

Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis

Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.