WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
VOL.437 NO.7061 DATED 13 OCTOBER 2005
This press release contains:
Oldest recorded noodles come from China
Editorial contacts: While the best contacts for stories will always be the
authors themselves, in some cases the Nature editor who handled the paper
will be available for comment if an author is unobtainable. Editors are
contactable via Ruth Francis on +44 20 7843 4562. Feel free to get in touch
with Nature's press contacts in London, Washington and Tokyo (as listed at
the end of this release) with any general editorial inquiry.
Warning: This document, and the Nature papers to which it refers, may
contain information that is price sensitive (as legally defined, for
example, in the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part V) with respect to
publicly quoted companies. Anyone dealing in securities using information
contained in this document or in advanced copies of Nature's content may be
guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Nature journals press site is at <http://press.nature.com>
* PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles,
Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the
Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on
the Friday before publication.
* PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries
will be available from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Monday
before publication
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Nature to be reproduced for the
purposes of contemporaneous news reporting, you must also seek permission
from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in
question (if not).
HYPE: We take great care not to hype the papers mentioned on our press
releases, but are sometimes accused of doing so. If you ever consider that a
story has been hyped, please do not hesitate to contact us at
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>, citing the specific example.
PLEASE CITE NATURE AND OUR WEBSITE www.nature.com/nature AS THE SOURCE OF
THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO
http://www.nature.com/nature
[1] Oldest recorded noodles come from China (p 967-968)
So you thought that noodles originated in Italy? Not true, say Houyuan Lu
and colleagues. In a Brief Communication in this week's Nature, they
describe the discovery in China of a bowl of beautifully preserved, thin
yellow noodles that are half a metre long and about 4,000 years old.
The researchers discovered the noodles inside an overturned sealed bowl
under 3 metres of floodplain sediment in Lajia, an archaeological site by
the Yellow River in northwestern China. The site harbours a settlement that
was probably destroyed 4,000 years ago by a major earthquake and flood.
To identify the plants the noodles were made from, the team looked at the
shape and patterning of starch grains and so-called seed-husk 'phytoliths'
in the bowl containing the noodles, and compared them with modern crops.
They concluded that the noodles had been prepared using grains from millet
grass. This is different from modern noodles, which are made with wheat
flour. But apart from that, the ancient noodles were produced in just the
same way as noodles today: the grains were ground into flour that was used
to make dough, which was then pulled and stretched into shape before
boiling.
CONTACT
William I. Milne (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 332757; E-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
PRESS CONTACTS...
For North America and Canada
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
For Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Rinoko Asami, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
For the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Ruth Francis, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Katharine Mansell, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd,
dedicated to serving the academic and professional scientific community.
NPG's flagship title, Nature, is the world's most highly-cited weekly
multidisciplinary journal and was first published in 1869. Other
publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature
Clinical Practice, and a range of prestigious academic journals, including
society-owned publications.
NPG is a global company, with headquarters in London and offices in New
York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich and
Basingstoke. For more information, please go to www.nature.com
