  Building on previous results of Xing, we give new lower bounds on the rate of
intersecting codes over large alphabets. The proof is constructive, and uses
algebraic geometry, although nothing beyond the basic theory of linear systems
on curves. Then, using these new bounds within a concatenation argument, we
construct binary (2,1)-separating systems of asymptotic rate exceeding the one
given by the probabilistic method, which was the best lower bound available up
to now. This answers (negatively) the question of whether this probabilistic
bound was exact, which has remained open for more than 30 years. (By the way,
we also give a formulation of the separation property in terms of metric
convexity, which may be an inspirational source for new research problems.)
