Sir John Franklin and all those other doomed explorers were thinking of a short route to the riches of Asia when they sought the Northwest Passage. Now that global warming is opening it up (summer 2008’s sea ice was the lowest on record) Alaska’s Kodiak Kenai Cable Company is planning to cut data travel times between London and Tokyo by more than 50 per cent, by laying fibre-optic cable through the famed passage. It’s a 15,000-kilometre, $1.2 billion (U.S.) proposal that could begin in 2011.