Mysterious Breathers: How insects breathe
This featured guest post was originally published under the title “Gasp! A breathing puzzle” on Noticing, a science blog by…
‘Race Correction’ in Medicine: A History of Lung Function Measurements
The Life of Breath project was delighted to host Professor Lundy Braun in Bristol recently to speak at our bi-annual…
Imaging and Imagining COPD (Wainwright, 2017)
What do people with COPD think their lungs look like? Ideas about what is going on inside the body can…
From magic mineral to deadly dust
This guest post, to mark Mesothelioma Awareness Day (26 September), is from the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. Most people probably don’t…
Lost in Translation? Exploring the language of breathlessness
Life of Breath post-doctoral researcher Rebecca Oxley writes: ‘Breath Lab’ is designed as a living experiment to promote discussion around…
Eight things that have changed since the smoking ban ten years ago
This post was originally published by The Conversation. Anthropologist and Life of Breath team member Andrew Russell writes: It’s hard to…
The uses and abuses of air (2)
The header shows Capacity by Annie Cattrell, part of the Royal West of England Academy exhibition ‘Air: Visualising the Invisible…
Heart Failure
The header image shows a viola, also called heartsease. Music therapist and writer Kate Binnie writes: I am in the hospital….
The Restricto-Box: Research without Borders
Life of Breath PhD student Tina Williams writes: The 2017 Research Without Borders Festival showcase exhibition ran at Bristol’s Colston…
The uses and abuses of air (1)
The header shows Ascent of Lunardi’s Balloon from St George’s Fields, London, 1788-90 by J. C. Ibbetson, which will be…
Breath Control: Note Collection
Artist Caroline Wright writes: Earlier this year, a two-day project called Space to Breathe took place at Somerset House in…
COPD, culture, climate and the sensation of breathlessness in Uruguay
Dr Megan Wainwright is an international collaborator on the Life of Breath project. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at…
It Felt Like Drowning
The header image shows ‘In the same breath’, a 2008 artwork by artist and glass-blower Kate Williams (borosilicate glass /…
A phenomenology of illness, part 2
Following on from part 1, Life of Breath PI Havi Carel writes: What is breathlessness? This is a seemingly simple…
A year of inspiration
Throughout 2016 our collaborator Jayne Wilton created unique and beautiful breath-inspired artworks to grace the cover of The Lancet Respiratory…
Restoring Breath: Questions, medical advancements and the importance of bystander participation
Tina Williams, PhD student on the Life of Breath project, writes a post prompted by the inaugural lecture of Prof….
A phenomenology of illness
Life of Breath PI Havi Carel writes: The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence….
‘Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!’
David Scoins (lifelong runner, sometime sports teacher) spent seven years in China; a year or more in each of Xi’an, Nanjing,…
Reflections on vaping 1: An introduction to the world of cloud-chasing
This post is the first of a series on vaping and vape tricks by Rebecca Oxley, post-doctoral researcher in anthropology on the Life of…
Nothing but blue skies
This post is written jointly by Jess Farr-Cox (Life of Breath Project Manager (Bristol) and recently back from a trip…
‘Out of his nostrils goeth smoke’: whales, whaling and breathing fire
In the second of a series of posts on cetaceans (see also ‘The cetaceans may give rise to some perplexity‘),…
The First and Last Breath: reflections from palliative & neonatal care
Kate Binnie, yoga teacher and music therapist, writes: In his brilliant book Being Mortal (2015) Atul Gawande calls for all…
Letter to my lungs
Elspeth Penny is an arts, health and communication specialist. She has a letter writing project and a creative consultancy and writes,…
Every Last Breath (2)
In an essay that first appeared in Atrium: The Report of the Northwestern Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program (Spring 2011, p….