The sento owners making group bathing in Japan cool again

Covid accelerated a decline but a new breed of bathhouse is reimagining a Japanese tradition

School sport was a hellscape for me. At 41 I’m hooked on exercise for the first time

I felt self-conscious in PE class from the age of five because I was slower than everyone else. So I checked myself out of an active lifestyle until well into adulthood

Group chat overload: have we reached peak WhatsApp?

From pictures of puppies to deadly political manoeuvres, WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging platform. But is it losing its appeal?

I’m 35 and I have gout – and it’s not for the reasons you think

Gout has long been seen as a bit of a joke, a disease of old men who eat and drink too much. It’s not that simple – or that funny

The big idea: why modern medicine can’t work without stories

Few of us see the same GP twice, but the doctor-patient relationship saves lives

What are the fewest separate foods you could eat and still have a healthy, balanced diet?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Altruism is a selfless act. So why did helping a stranger leave me feeling so foolish?

Helping a hitchhiker should have given me a warm glow of generosity, but ended with me feeling like a gullible shmuck, says Martin love

I had babies in Germany 10 years apart. This is what I learned about healthcare, motherhood and race

My son was born soon after we moved to Berlin to open a bookshop. Last year I had twins – and things went far less smoothly

‘I felt I was being assessed on my skin colour’: Black women around the world share their birth stories

From Rio to Reykjavik, London to Shanghai, Black women face a maternal health crisis. Six mothers share their stories of pregnancy, birth – and racism

Alone but not lonely: the solo activities that help foster connection

Loneliness can be difficult to talk about, and even more difficult to fix. But the pathways out do not always require company