Arctic Ice March 2011

In April 2010 a late upward blip in Arctic sea ice extent led some bloggers to write about 'recovery'.  The blip was anomalous, hence there is no reason to expect a repetition this year.  On the contrary, it is likely that ice extent will not increase by any significant amount before the 2011 melt season gets fully under way - if it is not under way already.
Archimedes steps in again.  The MacTutor tells us that
 
“Archimedes considered his most significant accomplishments were those concerning a cylinder circumscribing a sphere, and he asked for a representation of this together with his result on the ratio of the two, to be inscribed on his tomb.”
 
And one year after it was told us how to produce carbon spheres in relative abundance (at least, enough to buy a decent quantity from your laboratory chemical supplier), along comes Sumio Iijima telling us how to make cylinders.
 
Comparing athletes across generations is always difficult - in football, for example, players are bigger and stronger but before the hashmark changes of the early 1970s, when the field truly had a strong and weak side, a running back like Gale Sayers could make opposing defenses look silly despite an ability to break through a nose tackle.