It was the kind of superlative to which Alex Salmond has become accustomed. From the gothic majesty of Westminster's central lobby, BBC political editor Nick Robinson described the first minister as "the canniest political operator in these isles". Over

Researchers at Brown and Johns Hopkins universities have found optimal configurations for creating 3-D geometric shapes — like tiny, highly simplified geodesic domes that assemble by themselves. The Brown team developed the algorithmic tools, and the Joh