Excess ellipticity of hot and cold spots in the WMAP data?
  We investigate claims of excess ellipticity of hot and cold spots in the WMAP
data (Gurzadyan et al. 2005, 2007). Using the cosmic microwave background data
from 7 years of observations by the WMAP satellite, we find, contrary to
previous claims of a 10 sigma detection of excess ellipticity in the 3-year
data, that the ellipticity of hot and cold spots are perfectly consistent with
simulated CMB maps based on the concordance cosmology. We further test for
excess obliquity and excess skewness/kurtosis of ellipticity and obliquity and
find the WMAP7 data consistent with Gaussian simulated maps.
