Hidden from the eyes of the media, Taiwan's lesbian community has sprouted into a diversity of groups that operate services and activities geared towards expressing identity through lifestyle choices
By Ho Yi
On a Thursday night at Mango nightclub, groups of young women drink and sway to a pounding techno beat while a chic hostess invites members of the all-female crowd onto the dance floor to French kiss for a free drink. This no-man's land is the second installment of the first weekly lesbian party night organized by the bar Lez's Meeting. Since June last year, the same organizers have been running popular lesbian parties held every three to four months.

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Oscar Niemeyer is arguably the world's greatest living architect. As prepares to turn 100 later this year, he looks back on an extraordinary career
By Jonathan Glancey
"Fiidel Castro sent me that box of Havana cigars last week," says Oscar Niemeyer, looking dapper in blue linen trousers and black shirt with silver buttons. Holding court in his penthouse studio in Rio de Janeiro, this giant among architects continues: "And those boxing gloves next to it are signed by the Cuban world champion."

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Martin Nowak, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University, has a new take on evolution: it's all about cooperation
By CARL ZIMMER
When Martin Nowak was in high school, his parents thought he would be a nice boy and become a doctor. But when he left for the University of Vienna, he abandoned medicine for something called biochemistry. As far as his parents could tell, it had something to do with yeast and fermenting. They became a little worried. When their son entered graduate school, they became even more worried. He announced that he was now studying games.

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Oliver August follows the crooked path of businessman Lai Changxing, who paints a colorful picture of China's surreal interpretation of the capitalist dream
By JANET MASLIN
As Beijing bureau chief for The Times of London, Oliver August soon discovered something very newsworthy: that "the 'New China' known to readers had even more cliches than people." So August set out to find an unusual angle. During his seven-year stint in China, he became intrigued by the roller-coaster ride of a farmer-turned-billionaire gangster, a man variously regarded as Robin Hood, the Chinese Gatsby or an enemy of the state.

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'The First World' reveals the twists and turns of academic debate about language through the ages and the inadequacies of the main theoretical stances
By WILLIAM GRIMES
All branches of science search for origins. Biologists want to know how life on earth began. Astronomers want to know how the universe got started. Even in mathematics, questions about how different numerical systems came to be constitute a legitimate line of inquiry.

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FICTION

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