Thiel is widely regarded in Silicon Valley and in the US venture capital scene as a libertarian genius. He is the co-founder and CEO of the virtual banking system PayPal, which he sold to Ebay for $1.5bn, taking $55m for himself. He also runs a £3bn hedge fund called Clarium Capital Management and a venture [...]

The Divorce Pill? Women generally prefer the smell of men whose MHC gene complements are different from theirs, setting the stage for the best biological match. But Wedekind’s T-shirt study revealed one notable exception to this rule: women on the birth-control pill. When the pill users among his subjects sniffed the array of pre-worn T-shirts, [...]

Bill Mollison, the founding father of the Permaculture movement, gives us a quick tour of one of his many projects. This time we’re in central India, a couple of hours north of Hyderabad — walking amongst mangoes, bananas and a wide variety of other fruit and vegetables. What’s special about it is this ‘food forest’ [...]