Teletubbies and friends: Inside the bizarre science behind your child’s favourite show
What makes the world’s most successful children’s TV programmes so addictive – and so strange? Linda Geddes explores the research on kids’ TV, what...
My many selves: How I learned to live with multiple personalities
For years, science battled to understand whether multiple personality disorder was real or not. Today, the condition is known as dissociative identity disorder to...
Headaches, heartaches & pregnancy: Could this stem preeclampsia’s deadly tide?
This silent killer stalks expecting mothers around the world and is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in South Africa. But still,...
Life on a hotter earth: Depression, drought & decolonising mental health
As the climate crisis worsens, arid parts of South Africa are expected to get even hotter and even more water-scarce. In Australia, drought’s taken...
Cobras & cures: Why the world is running chronically low on snake antivenom
Each year, millions will be bitten by venomous snakes and for many, antivenom will remain painfully out of reach. Discovering why is a tale...
The magistrate’s tail: How these pets are helping child rape victims get justice
In court, comfort for the tiniest victims of sexual abuse can come from the unlikeliest of places.
“All rise,” a voice declares as the...
Meet Zweli Mkhize, the man behind SA’s #COVID-19 response
Follow the country's health minister's journey from trainee doctor to his current role leading the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in this feature from...
Doing the ‘tramadol dance’: What this latest music craze says about Africa’s pill addiction
The illicit trade in this prescription pain killer has become the stuff of ballads and dance halls but its abuse is threatening to condemn...
The WHO, the drug & women’s right to choose: The story behind dolutegravir
Take a look at the newest HIV treatment set to hit South Africa's shores in 2019.
How this country is beating anti-vaxxers at their own game
One in three French people think vaccines are unsafe, yet vaccine coverage in the country is rising. Here’s how they do it.
In February...
‘Most complex health crisis in history’: Congo struggles to contain Ebola
Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak...
This is what it’s like waking up during surgery
General anaesthetic is supposed to make surgery painless. Now there’s evidence that one person in 20 may be awake when doctors think they’re under.
One she called the ‘minister of love’. The other? He was the ‘minister of...
Since the country’s rollout, less than a quarter of people who’ve started taking the HIV prevention pill are young women — despite high HIV rates.
Anyone can catch this drug-resistant bug. Surviving treatment is another story.
For years, catching this drug-resistant bacteria meant painful treatment that risked your hearing and mental health. Now, that could be changing.
This popular birth control shot is out of stock for the second year running....
Women who have been forced to go without their usual birth control shot are now facing the consequences of months-long shortages.
He would ransom the pills for something more precious than profit: His wife’s life
When a few months of treatment costs as much as a house, some patients are taking their lives and the law into their own hands to survive.