Elsewhere in Antarctica, Russian researchers boast of their recent discovery of a freshwater reserve the size of Lake Ontario after drilling through miles of solid ice.
On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children's apps for phones and tablets gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off their games.
Think how the body-piercing favoured by punk-rockers lost its power to shock after young bankers started sporting discreet earrings with their pinstriped suits.
A foreign diplomat adds that countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which might in the past have blocked a Gulf upstart from flaunting such ambition, no longer have the will to try.