It is not just Physics World that looks different this month – the universe might well have changed its appearance too. If Jean-Pierre Luminet and co-workers are correct, space is not, as we previously thought, flat and infinite. Rather, we could live in a universe that is shaped like a football – a Poincaré dodecahedron to be precise – and resembles a video game in certain ways. We have been here before. Einstein thought the universe was static until Hubble’s observations suggested otherwise. Astrophysicists thought they had a good idea about the mass and energy content of the universe until “dark” energy showed up. Inflation predicts that the universe is flat, but it has not been properly tested as a theory yet. The next set of WMAP data on the cosmic background, due any month, could help decide the issue. Until then, Luminet’s article on cosmic topology is recommended.