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In the September/October issue of Intelligent Life, John Parker, The Economist's globalisation editor, explores what makes a capital of the world in 2011. His "Parker Scale" sets out five criteria: power and influence, income and wealth, education, global connections, and culture. Weighing the evidence, he picks London. But other Economist correspondents have different ideas. And so do you.

We opened a poll, and so far more than 3,000 of you have voted. New York has been making the running, with 38% of voters agreeing with The Economist's Adrian Wooldridge that the Big Apple is today's world capital. London is a close second, with 26% of votes. Lagging some way behind are Washington (8%), which Peter David argues is the only serious contender for the prize; and Singapore (7%), Edward Carr's choice—"not because it is the world's greatest city, but because it is the closest match to the ideal capital of an increasingly federal world". Perhaps Beijing, Shanghai and Delhi can hope for a late surge. At the moment they each have just 3% of your votes.    read more »

A main feature for the autumn issue of Intelligent Life magazine looks at the decline of the polymath. The author, Edward Carr, argues that in this age of specialisation, the polymath has become an endangered species. For an accompanying table, we set about identifying living examples. We asked around the office, inviting nominations from the staff of Intelligent Life and The Economist. The names that came in were highly varied, overwhelmingly male, mostly Anglophone and all over the age of 45.

In the end we included only those who were reckoned to excel in diverse fields; among the scientists, we limited our choice to those, such as Roger Penrose, whose writing has attracted wide acclaim. Here is a selection of the most persuasive candidates, plus the odd wild card. We have listed their principal activities and put them in order of the number of strings they have to their bow. Don't agree with our choices? Feel free to add your own.

5 STRINGS

Nathan Myhrvold: American, 51.
Computer scientist, physicist, entrepreneur, photographer, chef

Richard Posner: American, 70.
Judge, literary critic, economist, political theorist, philosopher

Jared Diamond: American, 71.
Anthropologist, geographer, physiologist, author, ornithologist

Brian Eno: British, 61.
Musician, record producer, visual artist, political activist, diarist

Bruce Dickinson: British, 51.
Singer, TV presenter, pilot, TV presenter, record producer, fencer

4 STRINGS

Noam Chomsky: American, 80.  read more »

The story of humanity is written in our genes, and thanks to modern science and technology, we are finally able to read it, writes J.M. Ledgard in our latest cover story. Geoffrey Carr, science editor of The Economist, explains how this works:  read more »