A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. Virginia Hughes reports.
Is there real science in the spiritualism of meditation? Jo Marchant meets a Nobel Prize-winner who thinks so.
More than a century after their discovery, we still don’t really know what blood types are for. Do they really matter? Carl Zimmer investigates.
Meet the donors, patients, doctors and scientists involved in the complex global network of rare – and very rare – blood. By Penny Bailey.
Common in the US, rare in Europe and now championed in Africa, male circumcision is hotly debated. Jessica Wapner explores whether the gains are worth the loss.
Ellie Lobel was ready to die. Then she was attacked by bees. Christie Wilcox hears how venom can be a saviour.
Allergies such as peanut allergy and hay fever make millions of us miserable, but scientists aren’t even sure why they exist. Carl Zimmer talks to a master immunologist with a controversial answer.
Most of us would rather not think about what happens to our bodies after death. But that breakdown gives birth to new life in unexpected ways, writes Moheb Costandi.
Losing your sense of smell can fundamentally change the way you relate to other people, writes Emma Young.
If we met new life – on this planet or the next – would we know it when we saw it? Matthew Francis investigates.
There are a few things science doesn’t know about the menopause: what it’s for, how it works and how best to treat it. Approaching her second – yes, second – menopause, Rose George finds herself with more questions than answers.
Holly Cave wants to know why her pregnancy ended at nine weeks. There are no easy answers, but talking about miscarriage could help us change the way we think about it.
History is littered with ideas to control male fertility – and men are keen to have them. But with the heyday of the contraceptive industry apparently past, bringing the two together requires great determination and inventiveness.
While it’s healthy to have a variety of bacteria in our guts, there’s one place where it’s best to have a single type dominant: the vagina.
A network of compassionate volunteers caring for their terminally ill neighbours is allowing more people in Kerala, India, to end their days at peace and at home. Jeremy Laurance meets the man leading the movement.
A campaigning doctor has helped make Mongolia a better place to die than many much wealthier nations. Andrew North met her to find out how.
A selection of images showing the study of blood groups throughout history.
From mass media to tribal ritual, campaigners are using circumcision to fight HIV in Zimbabwe. By Jessica Wapner.
A guide to venom-based drugs and the creatures we got them from.
Brains, like everything else, decompose. But nature has a way of halting that decay.
More and more people are rethinking traditional burial methods. Fathima Simjee asks why.
What can a fly tell us about time of death? Mo Costandi looks at the emerging field of forensic entomology.
Could dogs guide us to new ways of detecting cancer? Emma Young investigates.
Smells and aromas can move us in deeply personal ways, writes Emma Young.
We have smell receptors all over our bodies, but nobody is quite sure why. By Emma Young.
How do we define ‘life’, scientifically speaking? Find out in this video discussion with physicist and science writer Matthew Francis.
Miscarriage is an often under-reported and poorly understood subject that can be extremely traumatising for women and families. Hear from writer Holly Cave about how she made sense of her miscarriage.
We speak to author Rose George about these under-reported topics.
How do bacteria help maintain a healthy vagina, and what happens when this balance is upset?
In this short film, we meet four British end-of-life doulas
Studies of narcolepsy are changing the way we understand the influence of chemicals called orexins.
Smiling is one of the fundamental ways people communicate, so what happens if your face can’t do it?
You’d be forgiven for thinking that counting the different types of smile would be straightforward. It’s anything but.
More and more people are donating organs, but demand still far exceeds supply. What can the world learn from the country that does it best?
Alpha-gal allergy dictates what you can eat, wear, how you relax, and even which medicines are safe.
This reading list accompanies our story on how ticks are causing meat allergies.
