More Intelligent Life

A TROPICAL BREW

Deep in the Brazilian rainforest there is a town built around a church where worshippers drink hallucinogenic tea. Alex Bellos took a trip up the Amazon to sample the high life in Céu do Mapiá...

SEX, VIOLENCE AND RIGOUR

This Season: for his classical music choice, Michael Church selects two productions by David McVicar, including an Olympian one...

THE GENOME GADGET

The Music of Science: Oliver Morton reckons Alan Turing would love this: a gadget the size of a matchbox which can read a genome sequence...

MORE THAN A BIG MERINGUE

Stove Notes: Simon Hopkinson explains that Pavlova, a pudding that's fit for a star, requires a magic transformation...

BED AND ABOARD

Quarter Finalists: Claire Wrathall straddles land and sea in five hotels that operate their own boats... read more »
SCENES FROM A LIFE

From a first visit to the Little Theatre, Bolton, to the role of chief theatre critic on the Times and beyond, few people have seen as many plays as Irving Wardle. In this memoir, he distils what he has learnt... read more »
FUENTES ON TIME AND SPACE

The great Mexican novelist and essayist Carlos Fuentes has died aged 83. Two years ago, he wrote this piece for our series Authors on Museums. “Museums, like lovers," he said, "can lose their charms”, but when he returned to an old haunt in Xalapa, Mexico, he found he was smitten all over again... read more »
THE SHAPES WE'RE IN

Are you a leggy Edwardian? Or a nip-waisted New Look? With help from four actresses, Isabel Lloyd matches bodies to decades... read more »
RESCUING "ALIEN"

This Season: Nicholas Barber selects "Prometheus", Ridley Scott's bid to save the "Alien" franchise from its sequels... read more »
MAN OF MANY PARTS

Notes on a Voice: this year marks Charles Dickens's 200th anniversary. Emma Hogan tunes into a mind teeming with other people's thoughts... read more »
SOUND AND REVISION

Mood Music: With the exam season approaching, Matthew Sweet picks tunes to go with hard work—or blind panic... read more »