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Ageing and death

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience

Addiction Ageing and death Childhood and adolescence Cognition and intelligence Consciousness and altered states Family life Gender and identity Language and linguistics Life stages Love and friendship Mental health Mood and emotion Neurodiversity Neuroscience Personality Pleasure and pain Psychiatry and psychotherapy Self-improvement Sex and sexuality Sleep and dreams Social psychology Spirituality Teaching and learning Technology and the self Wellbeing

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Photo of two women hugging at an indoor event, one holding a piece of paper

videoLife stages

Grief, healing and laughter coexist at a unique retreat for widows and widowers

15 minutes

Blurry photo of a townscape with unfocused colourful lights strung across buildings in the evening.

videoAgeing and death

Memories of friends and neighbours light the streets of a seaside village in England

11 minutes

videoCognition and intelligence

A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory

4 minutes

Illustration of hands typing on a keyboard with handwritten notes and a man in a sequence of frames.

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Chatbots of the dead

We can now create compelling experiences of talking with our dead. Is this ghoulish, therapeutic or something else again?

Amy Kurzweil & Daniel Story

Illustration of four adult giraffes, and a young one lying down, with Mount Kilimanjaro and acacia trees in the background.

videoAgeing and death

We’re not the only animals that appear to grieve. What are the implications?

6 minutes

A detailed pencil sketch depicts a chaotic scene with fallen bodies, horses, and a broken chariot, with distressed figures in the foreground.

videoLife stages

What Michelangelo’s late-in-life works reveal about his genius – and his humanness

13 minutes

Sepia photograph of the poet with long curly hair and a full beard and moustache. He wears a white shirt and dark suit, and has a thoughtful expression.

videoStories and literature

To capture grief in poetry is to describe the ineffable. Here’s why Tennyson did it best

8 minutes

A colourful, abstract image featuring a large, black and white bird in flight. The background is a swirling mix of purple, orange, and yellow hues. A small figure of a child walks in the distance, casting a long shadow.

essayAgeing and death

Peregrinations of grief

A friend and a falcon went missing. In pain, I turned to ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ – and found a new vision of sorrow and time

Emily Polk

A close-up shot of one woman holding and comforting another grief-stricken woman

essayAgeing and death

Witness the pain

When loved ones are traumatically lost, bereaved families become accidental activists by turning grief into grievance

Chris Bobel

Illustration of two people sitting on colourful hills, gazing at a starry night sky with a crescent moon.

videoAgeing and death

Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end

4 minutes

Person wearing a white hazmat suit and a full-face respirator, standing in a dimly lit industrial setting.

videoPersonality

Why cleaning up crime scenes requires a rare mix of grit and empathy

9 minutes

Illustration of a person with glasses looking concerned, with an “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign, symbolising a concentration camp, in the background.

videoFamily life

Against her father’s warnings, Debra resolves to learn about his time in Auschwitz

4 minutes

Charcoal drawing of an older person’s face, showing wrinkles and a serious expression, on a light-coloured paper background.

essayMood and emotion

When grief doesn’t end

Suffering the sudden death of a loved person leaves some survivors stuck in grief. Can they win their lives back – and how?

Martin W Angler

Three rams with large curved horns standing on grass near a wooden fence and a small tree in the background.

videoDeath

Toby ponders the inner lives of the sheep that roam atop his parents’ graves

6 minutes

Two people on a beach watch the sunset over the water, framed by bicycle wheels in the foreground.

videoLove and friendship

A decade after his wife was swept away in a tsunami, Yasuo still searches the sea

9 minutes

Elderly couple sitting outdoors, both wearing glasses and light-coloured shirts, with greenery in the background.

videoAgeing and death

When his elderly parents make a suicide pact, Doron struggles to accept their choice

19 minutes

Elderly person with short red hair looking to the left, draped in a dark background. She is posing for a nude drawing class.

videoAgeing and death

‘It’s not beautiful, but it’s interesting’ – an ageing nude model surveys her body

4 minutes

A woman kneels among thousands of white flags in a grassy field, with a white tent and trees in the background.

videoArt

A massive art installation attempts to put the COVID-19 deaths in perspective

15 minutes

Abstract image with blurred and overlapping circles in red, yellow, and purple hues, creating a vibrant and colourful pattern.

videoAgeing and death

Death is a trip – how new research links near-death and DMT experiences

9 minutes

Elderly woman with a serious expression, wearing a patterned headscarf, white turtleneck, and red top. Dark background.

essayAgeing and death

Old not Other

Here’s a puzzle: why do we neglect and disdain the one vulnerable group we all eventually will join? Beauvoir had an answer

Kate Kirkpatrick & Sonia Kruks

Two men seated at a table in a library; one reading from a book, the other holding a violin. Bookshelves are in the background.

videoStories and literature

A musician and a storyteller collaborate in a daily duet of words and music

5 minutes

Abstract art with subtle silhouettes of a person and white flowers, blending into a misty, ethereal background.

videoAgeing and death

How an end-of-life doula found her vocation as a companion for the dying

7 minutes

Woman wading into a misty lake at dawn, as seen from a forested shoreline with bare trees and a wooden dock with a towel.

videoLife stages

Love evolves and death isn’t worth your worry – life lessons from an 88-year-old

7 minutes

A young woman in medical scrubs attending to an elderly woman in a bedroom with a floral bedspread and pink curtains.

essayAgeing and death

The gender of dementia

Are women really at greater risk from dementia? Until we reckon with social roles and inequalities, it’s impossible to say

Kate Gregorevic