alt Hacker News>an estimated 70 percent of viral capsids known to date are icosahedral, shaped like tiny soccer balls.
Soccer balls are not icosahedra. The archetypal soccer ball is a truncated icosahedron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truncated_icosahedron
Replies
1-more • today at 3:54 PM
And that archetypal soccer ball design is called the Telstar and named for a communications satellite, fun fact. I think before 1968 the volleyball shape was more popular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas_Telstar
strgrd • today at 4:24 PM
do you know what the modifier "like" means in the sentence you quoted, or are you just being annoyingly pedantic
There are a few pictures of truncated icosahedra in the article, alongside several other shapes that are not icosahedra. The point is that they have icosahedral symmetry. The L is important.