How did Noah’s Ark float? New species cram aboard

_ By Alister Doyle in Oslo  _

A man rests on the entrance of a modern day version of the legendary Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat at dawn in eastern Turkey in this file photo.

Most experts say the target is slipping out of reach. Even so, wider research means finds of new species such as a legless lizard in Brazil or a Tanzanian shrew are testing biblical scholars’ calculations on how Noah squeezed all animals aboard the Ark.

“It’s of course physically impossible,” James Edwards, executive director of the Encyclopaedia of Life, said of the biblical account. The Encylopaedia is cataloguing all identified species, 1.8 million so far, in a free online service (http://www.eol.org/). “There are expectations of 8 to 50 million more species out there that we haven’t identified yet,” Edwards said. Other experts’ estimates of the numbers range up to 100 million. But the newly found species do not compensate for extinctions. Sigmar Gabriel, environment minister for the UN conference host Germany, said last week that the loss of species threatened food supplies for billions of people. He cited marine life, saying that if nothing was done there would be no commercial fishing by 2050.

Extinctions of recent decades include Australia’s southern gastric brooding frog — the females could shut off their stomach juices to raise young in their stomachs, a trick that could have held clues for curing human ulcers. Believers in the Bible note that the Ark described in the Book of Genesis was a giant ship by ancient standards about 140 metres (460 ft) long — far from the tiny vessel depicted in many children’s books with giraffes’ heads sticking out the top. In the biblical account, Noah safeguarded life on the planet after God, upset by the wickedness and violence of mankind, sent a devastating flood. “Everything on earth will perish,” God said, according to the Bible.

All creatures
Noah only took along land creatures and birds, not plants nor fish that make up a large part of the world’s total species. “We’re talking about something plausible here,” said David Menton, an associate professor emeritus of anatomy at Washington University who works for Answers in Genesis, founder of a controversial Creation Museum in Kentucky. The museum, which opened last year, depicts the Bible’s first book, Genesis, as literal truth. Its exhibits have been welcomed by those who believe that God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000 years ago. Menton reckoned that Noah probably only had to take aboard about 16,000 creatures and said that most projected species discoveries are of tiny organisms.

“And we can leave out all organisms known to survive extensive flooding — such as insects and worms,” he said. Even though creationists reject evolution, Menton said Noah may have taken along pairs to represent closely related “kinds” of animals such as dogs, wolves, coyotes and dingos, or just one pair for cows and buffaloes or tigers and lions. He said Noah might have saved space by bringing along juveniles, including dinosaurs such as T-Rex or giant sauropods that could grow up to 30 metres (98 ft) long. Creationists believe that dinosaurs co-existed with humans. The dimensions of the wooden Ark, given in cubits in the Book of Genesis, imply it was about 140 metres long, 23 wide and 13.5 high. It had three levels, meaning a total deck space of just short of 10,000 square metres (107,600 sq ft).

“The cargo capacity of such a ship would be impressive for those times and could be as large as 30,000 tonnes,” said Dragos Rauta, an expert at the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO). Even so, the vessel would struggle to comply with modern marine transport guidelines, even with a few thousand creatures. Noah and his family took along at least two of every type of animal and bird, and food for all on a voyage that lasted for months. The Bible also says that “clean” animals, or those deemed fit for eating such as cattle, sheep and goats, were taken in sevens. Bjorn Clausen, managing director of Danish livestock shipping experts Corral Line AS, said large cows need at least 2 square metres each when held in pens for half a dozen animals.

“For animals like tigers, I’m not an expert but I’d say if you sail you’d need at least 4 square metres for a single tiger,” he said. What with other big animals such as kangaroos and rhinoceroses, the Ark would have quickly filled up.

Hot and cold
And zebras, penguins, vultures, pandas and antelope all need very different temperatures, food and habitats. “Noah would have to be a very skilled heating and ventilation engineer ... to have polar bears and iguanas on the same boat,” said Jesse Ausubel, chairman of the Encylopaedia of Life at Rockefeller University in New York City. “I’m not sure about the volume but ... they wouldn’t all want the same conditions in their cabins,” he said. The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a study by more than 1,300 scientists, estimated the number of identified species at 1.7-2 million with the final total likely to be between 5 and 30 million.

Of the named species, the biggest group by far, numbering around 1 million, are insects, centipedes and millipedes. Other big groups include plants, vertebrates — such as humans or whales — and molluscs. Mammals alone total more than 5,000 species — a few live in the sea, like whales. In a line taken by creationists to argue that insects survived outside the Ark, Genesis says “everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died” in the flood. Insects do not have nostrils, so perhaps they survived by floating on uprooted trees or other debris.

Feather-boa bicycle bandits invade city streets

_ By Frank Zeller in Hanoi  _

As prices soar, free food queues flourish

_ By Terhi Kinnunen in Helsinki  _

Reijo Miettinen, 62, never used to worry about going hungry, but as global food prices swell he has joined a growing number of Finns forced to turn to charity to fill their bellies. Miettinen, a pensioner with thinning grey hair, eagerly shows off the day’s catch: bread, ham, milk and a couple of ready-made meals — all for free courtesy of a group called Veikko and Lahja Hursti’s Acts of Charity.

“After I pay my rent and buy a monthly bus pass, I don’t have much money left. That’s why I come here,” he said as the food queue behind him circled around the yard before disappearing around a corner. Miettinen is not alone in complaining that sky-rocketing food prices have made it difficult in recent months to make ends meet. According to the World Bank, 33 countries around the world face political and social.

Heikki Hursti, head of Veikko and Lahja Hursti’s acts of charity.

disturbances due to rising food and energy prices. Few would have expected Finland, one of the world’s wealthiest nations, to feel the pinch.

But the Nordic country, which has long aimed to smooth out all class difference in its generous welfare state, has experienced growing income disparity in recent years, leaving the poor trailing ever further behind. At a time when the rich have never been richer, charities report that in the space of just one month, from March to April this year, the number of people queuing for food and other assistance had doubled. “For a long time we had 600-700 people queuing for food. Now we have had 1,200-1,300 people,” said Heikki Hursti, who runs the charity his parents founded at the end of the 1960s. People who drop by the charity for a free meal are retiree’s, unemployed and homeless people, students and even ordinary families with children.

“When I ask why they come here, they tell me they need help because food prices have increased,” Hursti explains. According to Statistics Finland, around 11 per cent of Finland’s 5.3 million inhabitants and 12 per cent of families with children are considered poor, meaning their annual income amounts to less than 60 per cent of the median income. In 2006, the average monthly wage in Finland was 2,634 euros ($4,091), which is not as high as it may sound considering the steep cost of living in the Nordic country. More people have also been lining up at the Salvation Army’s Helsinki office, and appointments at its welfare office are already fully booked for the next four weeks.

‘I don’t have money to buy food’
“Normally Christmastime is the busiest for us, but now I have been saying that it has been like Christmastime this spring,” said Raili Nurminen, a Salvation Army social worker, adding that she was particularly concerned that more families needed help. “Social benefits for families have stayed the same, while the cost of living has increased,” she explained. While the situation is dire for some Finns, Finland remains one of the countries least hit by the current global food crisis. Finns saw their salaries jump nearly 50 per cent on average between 1995 and 2006, figures from Statistics Finland show.

In about the same time frame, the per- centage of income Finns spent on food and non-alcoholic beverages dropped from 15 to just 11 per cent, with many opting to spend their excess cash on cars, electronics and holidays instead. And while food prices have grown at an unexpected pace in recent months, rising by 9.5 per cent in March compared to the same month a year ago, the increase has been far less than the European Union average of 11.4 per cent, according to numbers from Eurostat and the Pellervo economic research institute, PTT. For all of 2008, PTT forecasts an average food price hike in the Nordic country of 7.0 per cent compared to last year.

Statistics meanwhile show that while the gap between high and low wages has stayed in check after Finland’s economic recession of the 1990s, the rich are getting richer thanks to capital income from dividends, rents, and a rise in real estate prices. “The biggest reason for increased income disparity is the rise of capital incomes and their low taxation. There is strong growth in the highest incomes,” said senior researcher Ilpo Suoniemi from the Labour Institute for Economic Research. “Income disparity is apparent nowadays in stores, when people choose their groceries. It is no longer just about what hobbies you can afford to have or where you can travel or what to wear,” said Elina Ingman, a welfare worker in the northern town of Kajaani.

One person who can not afford to show off in the check-out line with foie gras and caviar is Markku Rinta, who has lined up in the same food queue as Miettinen in the hopes of getting something to put on the dinner table. “It’s more difficult to get a job as a storage worker when you are approaching 50,” the unemployed labourer complained, saying employers these days “want somebody in his twenties who has twenty years of work experience.” Rinta, who found his way to Hursti’s charity after a friend told him about the place, has been here a few times. “I don’t have money to buy food,” he said. “Prices have increased insanely.”
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            — AFP

D’oh! Doughnuts really are bad for you

"Eating just one doughnut will boost your trans fats intake to its daily limit," a Consumer Council spokesman warned. "There is growing evidence indicating that trans fats intake is linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease. Trans fats are now considered to be more harmful to health than saturated fats." There was no immediate response from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Hong Kong to calls for comment on the report. The good news for doughnut lovers is that other doughnut brands tested by the researchers found significantly lower levels of trans fats. Two other unbranded doughnuts contained 0.25 grams and 0.46 grams of trans fats per 100 grams.

The spokesman urged consumers to choose food with fewer trans fats as well as fewer saturated fats and cholesterol, to maintain a balanced diet, use less hydrogenated vegetable oil or butter fat in cooking, and steam and boil rather than fry. Trans fats, which have already been banned by some government, are popular with food manufacturers because they enhance flavour and make food last longer. Hong Kong, where waistlines have expanded rapidly in the past 30 years as more people abandon their traditional rice diet for more Western-style food, is introducing legislation for mandatory nutrition labels on food.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            — DPA